Five Sins of the Darkness
by parmakai66
Summary: Scully once said that the darkness covers a multitude of sins, little did she know how close to home the darkness would become. Hints of MSR
1. Chapter 1

Five Sins of the Darkness

Disclaimer: X-files and all of its contents belong to Chris Carter and his cohorts. I'm just borrowing a few characters to tell my twisted story.

A/N: The idea for this story spawned out of a friendly conversation at Wolfe's Tavern. I tip my hat to Tara, Paul, Jeff, Dan, Dannie, Ed, Derick and Gwen for putting the bug in my ear and sparking the hearty discussion that turned in to my story.

Thanks to my betas: my sister, who begrudgingly agreed to check my grammer even though she never watched X-Files and hates anything sci-fi related, my employees at my job that gave me their opinion about things, probably one too many times and my roommate Derick ... who not only read and re-wrote the story when he thought it wasn't heading the right direction ... and badgered me for weeks to "allow" him to be in the dang thing. And always to 2Distracted, even though she didn't pre-read this particular story … but has helped me become a better writer.

Timeline: Season 3, just after Revelation.

Summary: Scully once said that darkness hides a multitude of sins. (Season 2 Soft light). Little did she know how close to home the darkness would hit.

Chapter 1

He awoke to a veil of darkness, his throbbing head numbing his senses. As he blinked to clear his vision, his eyelashes brushed the fabric covering his eyes. In a knee jerk reaction, he moved his right arm to touch his head and was confronted by a searing pain radiating from his wrist to his elbow. He squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced as the burning sensation flooded his body. For a moment, all his focus was on his arm and what was causing the pain. _My arm's broken, _he thought as he tried to relax. He realized his arm was resting on a metal table straight out from his torso. While he concentrated on the coolness of the table, he became aware of the tubing of the nasal cannula resting just under his nose. _I'm in a hospital, _he thought as he took steady breaths to ease the pain. _I'm in a hospital, _he repeated feeling his body relax.

The comforting thought of a hospital room quickly dissipated when he realized he was restrained, not by a leather strap--as he once had the displeasure to endure--but by a thick rope. Tied around his wrist and ripping into his skin as he pulled against it, the rope was attached to a point somewhere next to where he lay. He tried to kick his feet and testing his right arm as gingerly as he could only to discover the alarming truth….he was tied down and not for his safety either. _I'm not in a hospital…where the frick am I? _He frantically began to kick and pull at the restraints on his feet and left wrist. Fear washed over him as he gritted his teeth and contemplated his situation.

_Get a hold of yourself! _he sternly scolded as panic settled in. _Where the frick am I? And what the frick's wrong with my eyes? Why the frick are they covered? I can see, I think, _he rambled silently. A fever boiled in his blood and sweat dampened his brow. The rapid questions flooded his head and triggered a severe headache. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach and turned his head to vomit. As the excretion pooled by his shoulder, he coughed forcefully to clear his throat and felt the room spin slowly out of control. Darkness clouded his vision again as he drifted into unconsciousness.

A spasm in his leg rattled him from his sleep in what seemed like mere minutes later. But without a point of reference such as a clock, for all he knew a few hours may have passed. He felt a heaviness on his right arm and discovered that a splint or cast of some type had been placed on it. Whoever had the decency to splint his broken arm and clean the putrid vomit from his shoulder also took the liberty of removing his clothing. As the air from the room cooled his warm skin, he realized his vulnerability to his captors. He was naked, blind, and restrained with no way to protect himself.

_Where am I? _he thought as he tuned in his senses. The surface he was lying on was not the familiar foam hospital mattress. Missing was the sound of the vinyl covering crinkling at every move and the thin sheets to cover his limbs. As he ran the fingers of his left hand over the rough fabric, he likened the material to that of burlap and the bed to be an army-type cot. He stretched his fingers off the side as far as they would reach and estimated he was about two feet off the floor. He licked his lips and tried to remember the events that led him to this point, searching for clues of his predicament.

He ran his tongue over his dry lips and chuckled at the irony of his situation. _Whoever is so worried about me escaping from this room sure doesn't give a crap if I start screaming my head off, _he thought as he mused over the lack of a gag on his face. He sighed when he thought about the reality of his plight. _Or they're holding me in the middle of nowhere, so no one would hear it if I started yelling. __Where am I anyway? _he thought trying to remember to past twenty four hours.

The Poconos. He and Julia had one wild weekend alone. It had been her idea, but he needed a weekend off. _Needed the weekend? More like I was ordered to take a vacation. _Julia had caught him at a weak moment, as the Poconos weren't exactly his cup of tea. He had agreed begrudgingly. A couple of glasses of wine later and he didn't need much more convincing of her intentions or his role in them.

He sighed and closed his eyes picturing the memory in his mind. The wine had made him woozy, like the feeling he had when he was in the dentist chair. Once his inhibitions had been laid to rest, his hunger was satisfied. He and Julia had nibbled at each other throughout the night. Each striving to meet the others needs and satisfying the cravings of companionship. It seemed so real to him at that moment. _Maybe my confinement is just a wine-induced dream_ he thought as he remembered Julia touching him. He tilted his head back at the memory of her skin against his and felt himself melt into her. As reality blended with his memory, he felt himself release his emotion into a warm blissfulness and then he drifted quietly off to sleep.

TBC

P.S. Reviews are always welcomed.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Out of habit, he opened his eyes when he awoke, only to find darkness. He took a deep breath and concentrated on his senses to define his surroundings. Curiously, he found himself face down on the cot, his left arm wrapped around the framing and secured across the fabric, tight against his chest. His right arm was resting on a metal table next to him.

It was the position of his legs that troubled him the most and the more he concentrated on them, the more fear began to paralyze him. He was lying on what seemed to be a foam pillow of sorts. His legs were tied apart in a _spread eagle _posture leaving his backside exposed for all to see. As he thought about the indignity of the position he was in, he became acutely aware of a burning sensation emanating from his crotch. The area was irritated and the folds of the skin felt like they had been rubbed raw. He gritted his teeth and winced at the thought of what was causing the discomfort. He racked his brain to remember if he had felt it before, when he was lying on his back or before that, at the hotel with Julia. His memory drew a blank. After several minutes of contemplation, he decided that whatever the cause, he wasn't about to stick around for a second dose. He concentrated on the stillness of the room, hearing only his heart beating loudly in his ear. When he was sure there was no other movement in the room or in the vicinity, he began to move his limbs to loosen the ropes detaining him.

The slight tugging on the ropes lead to his first surprising discovery, his right arm was not tied to the table as it had been earlier. He stretched his fingers to check for dexterity and when he was sure he could move his hand with tolerable pain, he pulled his arm toward his face, pushing the blindfold from his eyes.

He squinted as the light flooded his vision. As his eyes began to adjust, he scanned his surroundings quickly. He found himself in a windowless room. The cot he was laying on, two metal tables, and a metal folding chair were the only real furniture in the room. Two tanks that resembled oxygen tanks were sitting directly above his head as well as the stand for an IV bag. A pile of clothing lay crumpled in the corner to the right.

Peering over the side of the cot, he inspected the rope tied at his wrist and followed the line to find where it was connected. He lifted his head and looked around in an effort to find something to cut it with. He discovered a small pocketknife on the table to his right and reached to pick it up. Methodically, he went to work on the rope, working relentlessly to saw through the binding. He nicked himself in the process and cursed under his breath as he felt the blood begin to pool in the wounds. After a minute, his left arm was free, and he pushed himself into a half sitting position to begin to work on his feet. The first leg wasn't easy; he was laying half on the cot and half off, leaning slightly on his right arm as he sliced into the rope fibers. He gritted his teeth as throbbing pain radiated from his right elbow into his shoulder, but he couldn't think about that right now. Releasing the binding rope put him one step closer to freedom.

As soon as he was free, he pushed himself off the cot and made a beeline for his crumpled clothing. He leaned against the wall as he struggled to pull his jeans up to his waist. Glancing over at the cot, he noticed blood stains on the fabric below the foam pillow. He felt his stomach turn and he turned his head to clear his thoughts. _Can't think about that now, _he thought as he scanned the room, looking for a diversion. His eyes settled on the oxygen tanks above the cot. He fashioned a sling out of his shirt and hooked it over his head, cradling his right hand to his chest. He stared at the tanks and tilted his head. Stepping closer to them, he read the writing on one of the tanks aloud.

"Nitrous Oxide," he mumbled as he tilted the tank back. "No wonder I felt like I was at the dentist office." He shrugged his shoulders and stepped around the cot to the door. He put his hand against the wall and hesitated a moment as another wave of nausea came over him. He breathed slowly in through his nose and out of his mouth several time as the feeling subsided.

He stood at the end of the cot, bracing himself against the wall for several minutes until he heard a voice from the other side of the door. He looked down at the floor, spied the pocketknife lying under the cot, and stooped to pick it up. He stepped behind the door and waited. The seconds clicked off like hours in his mind. The voice was louder now, just outside the door in a conversation with another. One was clearly a male, the other … more distant... was a higher pitch, perhaps a female.

He took a breath to calm his nerves just as the door popped open. A male entered the room and stopped dead in his tracks just inside the door. The man was shorter in stature and stocky. _I can take him _he thought as he lunged forward pushing the man to the floor. He wrestled with his captor, slashing at his skin with the knife. He grabbed a fistful of hair and slammed the man's skull against the floor a couple of times until the man's resistance stopped.

He leaned back on his haunches and wiped the sweat from his brow. He pushed himself to a standing position and caught his balance on the door and when he was sure of himself, he darted from the room and made his way down the hallway. As he rounded the corner, he came face to face with a woman. She walked toward him with confidence. _God is she hot, _he thought as he warmed to her smiling face. A sharp prick on his bicep pulled him out of his thoughts and as his legs began to buckle and the light began to dim, he cursed himself for his stupidity. _There ya go again, thinking with your little head, instead of your big one. _

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: yeah, yeah, yeah … they belong to someone else.

A/N: Reviews are welcomed!

Chapter 3

Special Agent Dana Scully juggled the load hanging off her arm and sighed impatiently as the main elevator in the Hoover Building crept to a stop. It was Monday and she was exhausted. Her weekend away of "just me" time turned into a mini family reunion when her mother had proposed they drive down to Norfolk to see her brother Charlie while he was on leave. The weekend was anything but restful, and today she paid the price. Scully turned her wrist to look at her watch and mentally noted the time. _Eight oh five, _she thought as she planned the rest of the morning. _Just enough time to finish our case report before heading to the briefing with Skinner. _

The car finally reached her destination and she squeezed through the bodies to reach the door. She turned to head down to the Accounting Department to drop off her expense report when she heard her name echo in the hallway.

"Agent Scully," called a familiar voice from behind her. She turned around to match the voice with the face of Agent Derick Behnke. Behnke was one of Mulder's basketball buddies from the YMCA and often swam with him at the Quantico pool in the morning. Scully considered him more of a friend than a foe, although classifying him in the _friend _category was a stretch.

"Hi Derick," she replied inclining her head. She looked up at Behnke and sized him up mentally. _He looks like a basketball player, tall, athletic with a chiseled jaw line, _she thought mentally, trying not to look obvious.

"Hi," he replied with a raspy voice, out of breath from running down the hall. "Did you get my message?"

Scully shook her head. "No …what message?"

"Skinner moved the briefing up to this morning," he replied.

"He moved the briefing up?" she replied with a concerned tone in her voice. _I don't have my report done, _she thought quickly. "When is it?"

"In about 20 minutes," he replied looking at his watch.

"Shit," she mumbled checking the time for herself. _I don't have the report done, _she repeated to herself. "Why didn't anyone call me?"

"I left messages for you at your apartment and on your cell phone," he replied defensively. He glanced at Scully and took note of the panic stricken expression on her face. "What's wrong?" he asked, but he understood her answer before she even spoke. "You don't have your report done?"

Scully turned from him and started down the hallway. "No, I gotta go," she mumbled under her breath. "Tell Skinner I'm on my way." She headed straight for the stairwell and descended to the X-files basement office.

Scully appeared in the Assistant Director's office thirty five minutes later with a pile of files in hand. _Gotta make it look good, _she assured herself when she walked into the room. Agent Behnke was already seated at the conference table with another of Mulder's basketball pals, Agent Levi Stone. AD Skinner was talking on the phone at his desk. Scully had expected to see her partner, Agent Mulder, sitting at the table chumming it up with his pals, but was surprised to find he was nowhere in sight. _Okay, perhaps I'd be more surprised to actually find him here on time, _she mumbled as she walked to the conference table.

"Where's Mulder," she asked Stone and Behnke as she pulled out and began to arrange her files on the table.

"I dunno," Stone replied sipping on his coffee. "Not here."

Scully stared at the table blankly and contemplated what excuse she was going to use for him today. _Abducted by aliens, dog ate his homework, kidnapped by a crazed lunatic and kept as a sex slave, _were a couple of options that filtered through her head. _Perhaps I'll just stick to the truth. I don't know where he is because I haven't seen him all weekend, _she told herself reassuringly.

"Agent Scully?"

Scully blinked and looked up into the face of Assistant Director Skinner. "Excuse me sir?" she mumbled when she realized he had asked her a question.

"Long weekend Agent?" he replied dryly. Stone and Behnke chuckled in the background.

"You could say that," Scully muttered under her breath.

"Is your partner going to join us this morning?"

"I don't know sir," she stammered. "I haven't seen him all weekend."

"I was here Saturday morning and he wasn't in his office," Behnke offered as support from the end of the table.

"That's a first," Skinner replied flatly looking across the table.

"Sir, you did give him the weekend off," Scully reminded him curtly.

"When has Mulder ever actually listened to me when I've told him that?" Skinner replied smartly. "Could you try to call him Agent?" he said looking directly at Scully.

"He had the weekend off?" Stone smirked while Scully attempted the call. "Ah mmm, it makes sense now," he said with a sly grin on his face.

"What?" Behnke asked.

"I saw him at "The Bench" on Friday with the hottie from the coffee shop," Stone said nodding his head.

"The coffee shop?" Behnke questioned. "Which one?"

"The tall brunette."

"Oh, that's descriptive," Behnke retorted rolling his eyes. "I think all of them are brunettes."

"There's no answer," Scully interrupted with an annoyed expression on her face. She had heard their banter about Mulder and his flavor of the month and she was over it.

Skinner was about to respond when his office phone rang. He walked to answer it while Stone and Behnke continued their meaningless babble about Mulder in the background. After about a minute Scully couldn't take it anymore, she pushed back her chair and stood from the table.

"Could you excuse me?" she said announcing her departure from the room. Stone and Behnke looked up at her and watched her leave.

"Way to go Stoney," Behnke cracked just after Scully had pulled the door closed.

"What?" Stone retorted. "Oh that?" he said pointing in Scully's direction. "Who can blame the guy when he is partnered with the ice princess?"

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Scully washed her hands and smoothed her hair in the bathroom mirror, stalling before heading back into Skinner's office. It wasn't really her business what Mulder did with his time off or with whom he spent it. Normally it wasn't a big deal to her, but since losing her sister Melissa and living through the turmoil of the past few weeks, she just didn't want it shoved in her face. Scully took a deep breath, pulled the door open, and exited the bathroom, walking toward Skinner's office with renewed determination. She found Agent Stone pacing outside the office in the hallway.

"What's going on?" she asked him when she noticed the concerned expression on his face. _He's a horrible poker player _she thought as she looked at him.

"Ah, Skinner rescheduled the briefing," he replied trying to act casual. "But, he wants to talk to you Dana." Stone inclined his head toward the door and started down the hall toward the bullpen.

Scully watched him go with a miffed expression on her face. _Dana? What's with the first name crap? That's not a good sign, _she thought as she processed Stone's use of her first name. First names were hard to come by in the FBI. Nearly everyone just referred to each other as Agent or by last name out of habit; first names made everything more personal and changed the landscape of the game.

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Assistant Director Skinner thumped a pencil on his desk and stared blankly at his calendar while he waited for Agent Scully to return to his office. Both Stone and Behnke had pleaded the fifth when he had asked her whereabouts after his phone conversation, but somehow he was sure they had something to do with her disappearance.

He sighed heavily while trying to formulate the conversation he needed to have with her. The message was going to be difficult and he was concerned about Scully's reaction. Agent Mulder had expressed some "off the record" concern about Scully's focus the past few weeks. Skinner reflected on the conversation last week, when Mulder had convinced him to order the two of them to take the weekend off.

_"Sir, can I speak to you," Mulder had said after the briefing on the stigmata case. He had darted his eyes in Scully's direction and gave Skinner the sign that it needed to be alone. _

_"Yes, Agent Mulder," Skinner replied falling right into the cadence of Mulder's charade. "I needed to talk to you anyway about… ahh a complaint I received." _

_"Scully, I'll catch up with you in a minute," Mulder had called to her. Skinner caught the rolled eyes/arched eyebrows communication between the pair. Then, when the door was safely shut between them, Skinner leaned back in his chair and gave Mulder the floor. "Sir, can we talk off the record?" _

_"Yes."_

_"I'm concerned about Scully," he stated. "She needs to take some time off work." _

_"Mulder, I've talked to her about that already. She doesn't want to take the time off," Skinner countered. "She said working keeps her mind off ...it." _

_"Working everyday doesn't give her time to grieve either," Mulder argued. "She needs it ... needs to get it out of her system and …. reset."_

_"I can't force her to take time off," Skinner objected. _

_"You can't or you won't?" Mulder had asked him. "I seemed to remember you ordering me to take a vacation once or twice in my tenure." _

Two hours later, Skinner marched down to their basement office and ordered both agents to take a mandatory 72-hour vacation. Today was their first day back to work, and only one of the pair had shown up.

"Assistant Director?" Scully's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "Agent Stone said you wanted to speak with me?"

Skinner stood from his desk and extended his hand toward the chair. "Agent Scully have a seat." He watched her walk to the chair and settle into it. He still didn't have a clue how he was going to present the news. Finally, he decided on the direct approach. "Agent Scully, do you know where Agent Mulder is?"

"No sir," she replied with a blank expression on her face. "As I said earlier, I haven't spoken to him since Thursday."

"And he made no mention of his weekend plans?"

"No," Scully replied. "Not to me, perhaps you need to discuss that with Agent Behnke and Stone." She paused a moment and swallowed. Skinner was giving her one of those _I'm not amused Agent _stares. "Sir, what's this about?"

Skinner sighed again. "I just received a call from the Pennsylvania State Patrol. Agent Mulder's car was found abandoned just outside of Nockamixon State Park," he said flatly. He watched Scully carefully looking for any sign that the news was going to break her, but her face was a slate.

"And Agent Mulder?" she asked her voice tense.

"Missing. Apparently the vehicle was in a multi car accident but when state police arrived on the scene Mulder wasn't around," Skinner replied noticing a slight flush in the color of Scully's face. "They've made a complete search of the surrounding area and have yet to find him." He paused a moment and let the information set in. Skinner had other details about the accident, which he had shared with Agent Behnke when he debriefed him on the case, but decided that now was not the time to discuss them. _Behnke can fill her in later, _he thought as he moved some papers around on the desk. "I've assigned Agent Behnke to assist you in working this case Agent Scully," Skinner finally said drawing her back from her thoughts.

"Thank you sir, but I can work this alone," Scully remarked.

"Agent, I don't think I need to remind you that bureau policy states field agents are to be assigned in pairs," Skinner grumbled.

"I have a partner."

"Yes, Agent Scully. And your partner is currently missing. Which is why I've assigned Agent Behnke to work with you on this case," Skinner replied and then glared at her. "He's arranging your flight to Philadelphia and will have the case file as soon as it comes over the fax." He glanced at Agent Scully from across the desk. There really wasn't any bureau policy on field agents working in pairs; it was just the thing that had been done for years. But, the norm gave Skinner an excuse to have someone there to watch Scully. Mulder was right; the past few weeks had been tough on her and now to have her partner missing ….he shuddered at the thought of what losing him would do to her. _Let's hope this thing is resolved quickly and for the best, _he mused. "Do you have anything further, Agent Scully?" he asked her. He watched her shake her head. "Then you are dismissed."

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Reviews ... good, bad or ugly are always accepted.

Chapter 4

Monday afternoon.

Dana Scully snapped on the latex gloves and adjusted the light fixture above the corpse. She checked the clock on the wall and wrote the time down on the file folder. _1530 hours_ she thought as she set the pen down. Her mind flashed back to the debriefing an hour ago with the state trooper in charge of the investigation. Trooper Miller had been explaining the magnitude of the vehicle accident and the search they had begun for her partner Agent Mulder.

_ "We found the female passenger from Agent Mulder's vehicle floating in the river here," he had commented pointing at a red X on the map. "She appears to have drowned." _

_"Is that the coroner's opinion on the cause of death?" Scully had asked as she reviewed the accident report. "I don't see any notes on that." _

_"Well, I'm sure he does have an opinion," Trooper Miller chuckled. "However, he's not at liberty to give it right now." _

_"Excuse me?" Scully retorted looking up at the state trooper. "This is a federal investigation Trooper Miller. He is under orders to share his findings with us."_

_"And I'm sure he would, if he wasn't dead! The county coroner was the driver of vehicle B," Miller replied bluntly. "I've requested the State Medical Examiner's assistance, but it will be a couple of days before he can get here." _

Scully sighed inwardly. _This is why they pay me the big bucks, _she mulled over in her head. _No wonder Skinner assigned Behnke on this case. He knew the coroner was dead and I would have to perform the autopsy._

"Driver A crossed the center line and hit the county coroner's vehicle head on, which spun around and collided with Mulder's rental car," she mumbled aloud. "Since Mulder is missing and everybody in their brother is trying to find him, this is where I need to start." She pulled back the drape on the passenger and stared blankly at the corpse.

The woman lying on the table had a serene appearance about her, as if she was sleeping and not dead on a slab. Scully scanned the case file again. Her name was Julia Webster, age 28. She tilted her head as she reviewed the driver's license photo and then looked back at her face. Agent Stone had described Webster as a "hottie" earlier today.

"Well, you don't look that cute now," she muttered ruefully as she put the file down on her instrument table. She picked up the scalpel and adjusted the light again absent-mindedly. "Why don't you tell me how you really ended up in the water and where the hell my partner is?"

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"Dana, are you ready to compare notes?" Behnke yelled out as he entered the Forensics Lab at the local hospital. He found Agent Scully standing over the driver of vehicle A, holding … _something; ugh, I don't want to look at, _Behnke thought crinkling his nose.

"Ah, yeah," Scully replied placing the organ on the specimen table. She pulled off her gloves as she walked to the lab table and tossed them in the trash. Scully pulled a stool out from under the table and rolled it toward her temporary partner.

Behnke peered over at the corpse and shuddered at the sight of it. _So much for my appetite, _he thought. He caught the stool with one hand and sat down rolling back toward her and away from the dead bodies that surrounded him. "Okay, what'd'ya got?"

Scully ran her tongue over her lips. "She didn't drown," she said flatly.

Behnke's jaw dropped to the floor. "Really?" he gasped.

"Yeah, the alveoli in the lungs didn't indicate it," Scully began. "However…"

"The what?" Behnke asked with a confused expression on his face.

"Alveoli … the air sacs," Scully replied with a slight sarcastic tone.

"Can you put that in plain English for me?" Behnke asked with an innocent expression on his face. "It's been a while since honors biology. Science isn't exactly my thing."

"Okay," Scully replied slowly with a smirk. "I found water in the lungs, but there are no indications that she drowned. I suspect she was already dead when she was put in the water."

"Hmmph," Behnke replied biting his lip. "That blows my theory that she staggered up there."

"I highly doubt if she walked," Scully replied, standing up from the stool. She walked over to the x-ray display and turned the lights on. "Her right knee and lower leg was shattered."

Behnke stood and walked over to the display. "I figured as much. Based on the evidence from the car, she hit the dash pretty hard," he replied. He opened the file and handed two photos to Scully. "Which is why I said staggered … there's evidence at the scene that she was dragged or dragged herself." He handed Scully another photo showing the flattened grass and smeared bloodstains. "Any other injuries stand out? She wasn't wearing her seatbelt."

"How do you know?" Scully mumbled, staring at the photos.

Behnke moved to stand directly behind her. He was nearly a foot taller than her and easily reached over her shoulder. "See the seatbelt?" he asked her pointing at the photo. "It's in the manufacturer's position. If she had been wearing it, it would have been dangling loosely."

Scully turned her head and eyeballed him suspiciously. "Huh?"

"Ahh, biology? Not so much my thing. Accident mechanics and physics? That is my specialty. I teach the class at the academy," Behnke replied proudly.

"At Quantico?" Scully said watching him nod. "Really? Okay smarty pants; dumb that down for me then."

Behnke laughed. "Like you need it dumbed down? Okay... the seatbelt works on a ball and tumbler system, when you pull the strap to put it on, the tumbler falls forward. If the vehicle stops abruptly, the tumbler locks. The force of the collision or stop is dissipated and the locked belt holds the passenger in place," Behnke explained, pretending to pull on a seatbelt. "It can lock just by pulling it too hard. The only difference is after a collision the belt stays locked down, which means when it's released, it doesn't go back to its pre-accident position or the manufacturer's position."

"Hmm," Scully replied running her tongue across her lip in thought. "That explains why there isn't any bruising across her chest."

"But doesn't explain what killed her," he muttered under his breath. "What were her other injuries?"

"Nothing life threatening," Scully remarked pulling her eyes away from the photo. "Broken pelvic bone, ribs, and internal bruising," she rattled off pointing to the x-ray films.

"But nothing that she would have died from," he asked. "With proper treatment?"

"No … nothing fatal even if she hadn't been treated," Scully replied. She bit her lip again and looked down at the floor. "What about Mulder?" she asked turning to face Behnke.

Agent Behnke held her gaze for a moment before he answered. _God, she's hot _he thought as he looked into her eyes. _Mulder's crazy for not pursuing her_. He blinked and looked down at the file in his hand. Mulder had told Stone and him on more than one occasion that his relationship with Scully was strictly a partner/friendship thing. Not that he ever believed it and seeing the lost look in Scully's eyes nearly confirmed it. "Well, the airbag was on his side and he _was_ wearing his seatbelt," he remarked pulling yet another photo out of the file. "He cracked his head against the side window, so he probably has a head injury or at the very least a huge headache." Behnke watched Scully exhale deeply and for the first time he noticed her hands trembling. The assistant director had warned him about Scully's mental state when he assigned him to the case and now he understood why. Mulder was a wreck during Scully's disappearance two years ago, and he could see slivers of Scully acting the same way. _I better find him quick,_ he thought to himself. Behnke's cell phone rang just then and pulled him from his revere. He stepped away from Scully to take the call.

His call lasted less than a minute. "That was Stone," he commented closing his phone. "He ran a trace on Mulder's credit card and established a time line."

"Hope it matches mine," said a deep voice from the doorway behind the two agents. Behnke and Scully turned to find Trooper Miller entering the room from the hallway.

Behnke inclined his head. "Okay, let's compare notes. Mulder's card was last used Saturday about 2000 hours at a resort in the Poconos. The desk clerk who checked them out said the female, Julia, was visibly upset and had made a comment about a family emergency or something. Stone did a little checking with her co-workers at the coffee shop. Apparently Julia's brother was hospitalized on Saturday afternoon for complications with cancer."

"Sounds about right," Trooper Miller nodded, looking down at his notes. "The park is about a two hour drive from the Poconos. Driver A, Buck Walters, left Hennessey's Tap just before ten after getting into a fight with another patron. Bartenders said he had been there all day."

"And they let him drive?" Scully scuffed from the background.

"This is a small town Agent Scully. In case you haven't noticed, there isn't any public transportation around here."

"And that gives him license to drive drunk?"

"Hey, I don't condone it," the stocky state trooper replied defensively. "I questioned it as well, but the locals didn't seem to think much of it. Doc Huffman left the hospital about 9:30. He lived up by the lake, about a 30 minute drive."

"I estimate the time of deaths for Drivers A and B to be about 38 hours ago," Scully stated. "When was the accident reported?"

"Sheriff's department got the call about noon on Sunday," Trooper Miller replied running his hand through his hair. "They contacted us around 1:30 after they found your partner's wallet, ID, and service revolver in the car."

"And no one saw it before then?" Scully questioned loudly.

Behnke winced slightly at her completely annoyed tone. "Dana, the velocity of the crash knocked all the cars pretty far off the road," he replied calmly. "It doesn't surprise me that no one noticed it right away."

"Well, that's not exactly true," Trooper Miller replied quietly. "Someone saw it and then took off."

Behnke nodded his head and looked over at Scully who had a panicked expression on her face.

"Wha… what do you mean?" Scully asked, rather demanded.

"I was getting to that," Behnke said glaring at Trooper Miller. _Thanks ass! Can't you see she's a little frazzled by this? _he thought as he looked back to Scully. "Remember, I said that Julia was dragged to the river? Well, we found fresh tire tracks on the side of the road and footprints by Mulder's car that didn't match Mulder's shoe size."

"And," Trooper Miller added in a moment of silence between the two agents, "There was evidence of a struggle at the agent's car."

"And you weren't going to tell me?" Scully retorted.

Behnke paused a moment and darted his eyes from Miller to Scully. "Trooper Miller, could you give us a second?" Behnke asked him inclining his head toward the door. The trooper obliged and left the room. "Dana," Behnke said watching the door close behind the trooper, "I'm not keeping anything from you. I just hadn't gotten to that yet. We're both here for the same reason…. to find Mulder."

Dana bit her lip again and looked up at the room lights. "Why do I feel like Skinner sent you here to baby-sit me?"

Behnke shook his head. Scully was starting to unravel in front of him and he had to do something about it fast. "Do you honestly think you could work this case alone? Do the autopsies and work the evidence at the crime scene?"

Scully took a deep breath and shook her head. "No," she replied remorsefully.

"Good," he replied evenly. "I'm glad we agree on that. I need you on this to help put the pieces together. Just let Trooper Miller and I work the accident and you finish," he pointed around the room at the half-dissected corpse on the table. "Find out what killed Julia. That's our first lead to finding Mulder."

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Trooper Miller walked down the long hallway in the basement of the hospital heading for the morgue. His heels clicked on the hard tile flooring and echoed against the walls. He pushed opened the door to the morgue and scanned the room. The cold sterile examination tables loomed in the middle of his line of sight, but he spotted Agent Scully slumped over the lab table in the corner. As he approached her slumbering body, he could hear her snoring softly.

"Agent Scully," he said quietly touching her shoulder. He stood back as she jerked herself awake and watched in amusement as she wiped the drool from her lip with the back of her hand. "I brought you something to eat," he said setting a Styrofoam container down on the desk and fishing a can of soda out of his coat pocket.

Scully blinked and ran her hand across her face in an attempt to wake up. "Thanks, what time is it?" she mumbled. She lifted the lid of the container and took out half of the sandwich. She took a bite as Trooper Miller popped the top on the soda and set the can back down.

"Eight o'clock. Did you find out anything on the woman?" the trooper asked sitting down on the extra stool.

Scully swallowed and nodded her head. "The toxicology tests came back. She died from an overdose of Benzodiazepine."

"Benzo …what?" the older man coughed out with a perplexed expression on his face.

"Benzodiazepine. It's a tranquillizer. You might know it as Valium or Xanax," Scully replied matter-of-factly.

"Oh, yeah, I've heard of those," the trooper replied nodding his head. "So are you saying she ODed?"

"No," Scully said pulling a report from the table. "Based on the amount of it in her blood, I'd say she was injected with it."

The trooper tilted his head to the side and ran his tongue across his cheek. He looked around the room blindly and nodded his head as he processed the information. "So, whoever gave it to her would probably have some type of medical background?" It was a rhetorical question but he looked over to Agent Scully for confirmation. "What about a pharmacy tech?"

"It would be kept under lock and key," Scully began. She stopped short when she noticed the trooper shaking his head. "What?"

"Couple towns over, probably… oh thirty, forty miles from here, the corner pharmacy was broken into overnight. Owners reported it this morning," the trooper replied flatly. "I never thought to connect it…. but the missing items included drugs from the pharmacy and home health equipment."

'What do you mean home health equipment?" Scully interrupted. "Specifically?"

"I don't know exactly," the trooper said. "I just heard the report over the radio."

Scully set the half-eaten sandwich back in the container. "Can we go there?" her tone was excited.

"Well, yeah," he stammered, surprised by her sudden energy burst. "What're ya thinking?"

Scully jumped up from the stool and shuffled her papers into the file folder. "If Mulder was injured, whoever has him might have needed medical equipment to treat him."

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Tuesday morning

Dana Scully felt her head bob, and she jerked up. She scanned the room at the Sheriff's department to see if anyone else had noticed and found no eyes on her. She sighed and pushed herself up from the chair. Wandering over to the coffee pot, she mentally counted how long she had been avoiding sleep. _Its 9:30 now, I got here at 3:30, _she thought pouring herself another cup of coffee. She took the last of the pot. _I drank the whole pot, _she realized as she stared at the carafe. Scully pulled the basket out and dumped the used pod into the trash. Grabbing a fresh pod from the drawer directly under the coffee machine, she placed it in the basket and pushed the start button. She stared blankly at the pot as the machine super-heated the water and forced it through the pod.

A crack of thunder snapped her out of the fog. As a heavy thunderstorm enveloped the small town, she dumped some cream and sugar into her cup, grabbed a stir-stick, and headed back to her desk. She mentally chided herself for spacing out. _I need to be sharp for Mulder, _she reminded herself. _He didn't give up looking for me and I'm not about to give up looking for him. _Scully sat down at the desk and stared at the case notes in front of her. She felt like she was no closer to finding him than when she first got here yesterday. She closed her eyes and pursed her lips. _I cannot lose him, not now, not after losing my father and my sister. _

"Dana, please tell me you got some sleep last night," the familiar voice of Special Agent Derick Behnke called to her from across the room. "You look like hell."

Scully opened her eyes and looked up at her temporary partner. "I'll take that as a compliment, I guess," she replied and took a sip of her coffee.

"You didn't answer my question," Behnke reminded her as he pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the desk.

"That was a question?" Scully eyed him. She watched his face soften and his lip turn up into a smile. "I slept a couple of hours." She could feel his eyes on her and felt the need to over-explain. "I kept having nightmares."

"Ah… about what?" Behnke asked getting up from the chair and walking to the coffee pot. "Dreams are a doorway to our unconscious self. They can tell a lot about what we are thinking."

"Yeah, well, it was dumb," Scully scoffed and shuffled the papers of the file around the desk.

"Was it about the case?" he asked, not letting it go. "Sometimes I get answers about cases from my dreams."

Scully twisted her lips to the side. "It was about Mulder," she answered.

"Ahh haa," Behnke laughed. He walked back to the desk and sat down. "What about him?"

"You're not going to drop this are you?" she asked him and watched as he shook his head. Scully held his gaze for a moment and made a mental note of the look on his face. _Oh, that must be the 'big brother' expression …. looking out for my best interest. I'd be annoyed about his prying if he wasn't kinda cute. _She cleared her throat and swallowed. "I kept dreaming that we found him in some backwoods cabin and…" She trailed off and mentally hoped he wouldn't press her for an answer.

"And?"

"And .. he was dead," Scully bit her lip and darted her eyes away to avoid eye contact.

"Dana, we're going to find him and he'll be alive," Behnke replied confidently. "Whoever took him needs him for some reason."

"You don't know that," Scully argued. "_They _obviously don't even know who he is! His wallet and federal ID were in the console and his service revolver in the glove box. The only fingerprints on them were Mulder's! What could _they _possibly need him for?"

"To hang dry wall!" Behnke retorted and shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever the case, they need him alive, otherwise they would've left him at the accident scene."

"What makes you think that?"

Agent Behnke leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Because I'm working the profile Agent Scully," he replied evenly staring her down. "Which I suggest you start to focus on and leave your emotions out of it."

His words cut through her like a knife. Scully blinked and felt her cheeks become hot. She felt like she had just been scolded by her superior despite the fact that Behnke and she were at the same level. It took her a couple of seconds to regain her composure and all the while she felt Behnke staring at her.

"Work the profile Dana," he reminded her firmly.

'Ah … okay," she stammered as she pulled the photo of a footprint from the case file. "The abductor is most likely male…"

"What makes you think that?" Behnke interrupted.

"Well, this footprint is large and Mulder weighs about 185, so it would take a strong guy to move him," she stated.

"That's it?" he asked, when she didn't say anything more. "It's not a guy."

Scully rolled her eyes in frustration. "You think it's a female?"

"Yep."

"No way," Scully remarked. "There's no way a female moved Mulder by herself."

"She could if he wasn't dead weight," Behnke countered. "Remember there were signs of a struggle on the driver's side of Mulder's vehicle."

Scully shook her head. "I don't believe it," she muttered under her breath trying to picture it in her head. "There's no way a female could out muscle Mulder."

"Even if he was injured?" he countered. "He may not have had a choice; maybe he was woozy and couldn't fight back or was lulled into a sense of security. The struggle outside the vehicle may just have been a concerned passer-by and Mulder fumbling around to get him out of the car." He saw the disbelief in her eyes and continued to make his point. "Look, I'm not saying that she didn't have an accomplice, but the evidence at the scene indicates a woman led the abduction."

Scully scoffed at the idea, finding it impossible to wrap her brain around. "Why would a woman abduct him? What evidence?"

"Isn't it every woman's fantasy to have a sex slave tied to her bed?" Behnke asked. A wide grin crawled across his face, and he winked at her.

Scully rolled her eyes. _Oh brother, why does it always turn into an innuendo? _"Give me a break, Derick." She drained her coffee cup and stood up to get another.

"Okay, look. Keep in mind that we are dealing with someone whose mental stability is in question," Behnke countered to defend his argument. "A man rolls up on an accident scene, there are three cars involved, two drivers are dead. He finds two people in the third vehicle, a guy and a hot woman. Both are injured. He pulls the woman from the car to take her home and nurse her back to health, leaving the guy to fend for himself."

Scully tilted her head. _Not that I believe that, but for the sake of argument, _she thought, nodding her head subconsciously. "Okay … that's a guy's point of view," she remarked sitting back down at the desk.

"Okay, same scenario, from a female perspective," Behnke continued. "She finds a handsome guy in a compromising position and acknowledges female's physical appearance. She sees an opportunity to have a "kept man" so to speak. , but is threatened by a beautiful woman. She's jealous. She's probably had relationship problems, recently been jilted by a lover or maybe even commitment issues. In her mind, the best course of action is eliminate the competition. She has the means to kill Julia and she eliminates her. Then, she takes Mulder home to nurse him back to health."

"And the end result is what? That Mulder will fall in love with her?" Scully questioned shaking her head. "That's a stretch."

"Classic Stockholm syndrome! Didn't you see the movie Misery?" he argued. "It's the perfect profile!"

"Yeah, maybe if you are writing an episode of Law and Order," Scully moaned. He had a point, even though she didn't want to admit it. _It's something to go on for now, _she thought. "What about the tire print you found?" she asked changing the subject.

"I sent it to our crime lab for analysis. I figured Agent Pendral could pull something out of it easier than the state patrol lab," Behnke said, opening the case file. "I think he has a crush on you, he seemed much more eager to do it when I dropped your name."

"Please," Scully bantered with him rolling her eyes. "He's all of 19."

"Well, actually he's 25," he commented and then caught the "drop it" stare from Scully. "Anyway, I sent the tire print, blood samples, and syringe up to him last night. I'm just waiting for his call."

"What syringe?"

"Oh, that was turned in when you were with Trooper Miller last night. Some guy and his kid found it in the river just south of where Julia was found." Behnke remarked. "Speaking of Trooper Miller, where's he this morning?"

"He and the Sheriff's Department are interviewing the employees from the pharmacy break in," Scully replied. "He said he'd call if he got any leads." She paused momentarily as her cell phone rang. "Speak of the devil," she muttered as she answered it.

"Scully."

"Agent Scully, Trooper Miller. I think you need to come up here," the trooper mumbled into the phone. "I think we just broke the case."

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Sometime Tuesday

The thunderstorm rolled in the background, rain pelting the windows as lightning lit up the sky. He shifted in his sleep and burrowed his head deeper into the pillow. Although his body was relaxed for the first time in what felt like days, he still had a searing headache. He blinked his eyes opened and scanned the ceiling of the room, trying to focus on the environment. His vision was slightly blurred, but he could make out the shapes of the furniture in the room.

_I'm in a bed, _he mulled over as he took a deep breath and concentrated on the soft feel of the silk sheets that surrounded him. The musky floral scent of Julia's perfume invaded his nostrils as he turned his head to the left and snuggled his nose into her hair. Her warm naked body was coiled around his. _That was just a dream! Dream? More like a friggen nightmare, crickey! What did I eat before falling asleep!!! _He brushed his lips across her forehead and whispered her name in her ear. _I need to feel her close to me, _he thought as he watched her eyes flutter opened. _I need to know everything is okay. _

"Julia," he whispered again running the fingers of his left hand down the side of her face.

"Hmmm, baby" she purred back to him, turning her face to his and finding his lips.

Their lips crashed together in a hungry furry of kisses. He could feel the heat between them building, and his body responded in kind. Her torso moved over his and before he could react, she was on him. He felt himself plunge into her core, his organ driving through the molten lava to her center. Friction and a burning sensation alarmed him as memories of his _dream _flooded his mind. She quickly distracted him by offering her breast to his mouth. As he sucked on her nipple, Julia ran her hands through his hair. He felt her lean over his head, pressing her breast deeper into his mouth, while thrusting more forcefully against him.

He felt his control slipping and as he quickly reached his apex, the burning sensation from his organ began to paralyze his senses. He couldn't stop himself from exploding inside her and once he had spread his seed, an odd tingling sensation moved through his veins. He moved his right hand to stop her movement on him and was met with resistance. The heaviness that he felt on his arm earlier had returned. _My arm's still broken, _he mused as he pulled against his restraint. He felt her press his left hand to the surface of the bed, but he couldn't do anything to stop it. He heard the familiar clanking sound of handcuffs being fastened around his wrist and the bed frame. As he felt the woman's forceful thrusts against him, he realized everything was not okay.

That's when the reality hit him that the woman was not Julia. There were subtle differences that he had missed because of his desperate need for security. Her cologne, the feeling of her lips against him, the manner in which she touched him, the room… everything was wrong. Her hands and expressions were similar to that of a sex-addict, hungry and frenzied. Julia's touch was that of a lover, gentle and passionate.

Her lips grazed across his and the final clue hit him square in the face. Her breath was minty fresh, not musky like morning breath. He took the opportunity to take action, latching on to her lip he bit down until he could taste her blood. She screamed out in pain, recoiling from the pain.

"You bastard!" she screamed at him and she backhanded him in response.

The contact on his face smarted yet only fueled his fire. He fought against her, struggling to knock her off him with jerky movements of his hips. He kneed her in the crotch and tried to kick her with his feet, but just when he thought he was winning the battle, she pinned him to the bed. The stick of the syringe pinching his skin delivered an ice-cold solution into his vein. He looked into the eyes of his abductor just as a shard of lightning illuminated the room. On a normal day, he would have thought she was pretty and he may have even flirted with her. _What has driven her to this? _he contemplated as his sight began to dim and his world went black.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Tuesday – early afternoon.

Special Agent Derick Behnke tuned the car radio to an FM station and leaned back against the seat. He rested his left hand on top of the steering wheel and set the cruise control. He glanced over at his temporary partner Dana Scully and smiled when he noticed she had fallen asleep. She needed it. When he saw her earlier, she looked horrible. He mentally chided himself for scolding her about her focus, but this was business, not personal, and frankly, she deserved it. Scully had helped him with cases in the past and when she was "on", she was at the top of her game. Losing one sibling or parent in a six-month period would be hard for anyone, but to lose both her father and sister had to be completely distracting. He had heard that she barely took any time off work, and word around the office was that Mulder was keeping her in check. With Mulder MIA, someone needed to have her back and Skinner had trusted him enough to assign him the task. _If I was in her shoes, I'd be a flipping wreck … or I'd be out trying to kick some ass, _he contemplated as he approached Boyerstown, Pennsylvania.

Behnke parked the car in the parking lot of the City Hall where Trooper Miller had said to meet him. Miller and the sheriff's department had set up shop in a temporary office in the City Hall building, as the population of Boyerstown was less than 1,100 and didn't have a fulltime police department. He leaned over to Scully and gently touched her shoulder to shake her awake.

"Dana," he said softly, trying not to startle her.

"Five more minutes Mulder," she mumbled swatting his hand away.

_Mulder? _Behnke chuckled aloud. _Who are you dreaming about Agent Scully?? _"Dana," he repeated again jostling her shoulder a little firmer.

"What?" she replied snapping her head back from the window.

"We're here," Behnke replied, still chuckling at her Freudian slip.

Scully flipped down the visor to check her make up and hair in the vanity mirror. She glanced at Behnke and caught him staring at her. "Got a problem Behnke?"

"I'm not the one with the problem," he replied with a sly grin. "You were talking in your sleep on the way up here."

"I was not," Scully retorted flipping the visor back up against the roof of the car. "I do not talk in my sleep."

"How do you know? You're sleeping," Behnke replied calmly. "Unless you are one of those kinky Catholic girls who has a video camera set up…."

"Ahh!" Scully interrupted him holding her palm out in front of her face in the universal "stop" sign. "You're as bad as Mulder," she mumbled under her breath.

Behnke released the lock on his seatbelt and opened the car door. "Of course I am," he chuckled. "Birds of a feather flock together." Behnke walked around the front of the car and watched as Scully climbed out of the vehicle. She glared at him as she closed her door and walked ahead of him into the building, which made Behnke laugh even more. _Man, s_he's_ pissed, _he thought as he held the door open for her. _All the better to keep her distracted. _

"What do you have?" Agent Behnke asked Trooper Miller as soon as they were in the door.

The state patrol officer shook his head and waved the two agents down the hall. "At first I didn't think we really had anything, then this one guy's name kept coming up," Miller explained as they walked. "Evan Stower, age 27, single, one year of technical college. He's worked at the pharmacy for two years doing various jobs, cashier, delivery, stocker, and some times in the pharmacy." He stopped outside of a small conference room that was a makeshift interview room.

Behnke peered through the small security window in the door. Stower was sitting alone in the room staring at the table. He was stocky, brown hair, and crooked glasses. _He looks …. like a freak, _Behnke thought. He heard Scully ask the trooper a question and focused back on their conversation.

"We talked to three of the female employees, and they all commented that Stower would lurk in the parking lot either after work or when he wasn't scheduled," the trooper said. "He became of _person of interest _when we found out that his vehicle of choice is an old Dodge van."

"Did you check the tires?" Behnke blurted out as he stepped away from the door. Miller handed him the statements from the female employees and Behnke started to page through them.

"One of the deputies is going to check it out," Miller replied. "He didn't drive it here, and he doesn't have a van registered to him. One of his co-workers thought it belonged to his brother."

"What did his boss have to say about him?" Scully asked as she stepped over to look in the window.

"Mr. Jordan said he was a good employee, would work extra shifts and what not," Miller replied shrugging his shoulders.

"What about the "lurking" complaint?" Behnke remarked. "Did he take it seriously?"

"Well, apparently he didn't, which is why the women felt the need to bring it to our attention. Jordan thought Stower was harmless. The only questionable thing was the _tall _tales he would tell about his dating activities," Miller said.

"That guy gets dates?" Behnke scowled. He walked down the hall away from the door. "Yikes!"

"That was my thought," Miller said following him. "The guy ain't right. He gives me the creeps."

"We aren't labeling him are we gentlemen?" Scully said as she walked away from the door.

"Certainly not," Behnke muttered. "We're just making editorial comments Agent Scully." He handed the reports to her. "He doesn't give you the creeps?"

"Looks are deceiving, Agent Behnke," Scully twisted her lips to the side as she skimmed the report. "I need to talk to him first."

Miller looked over at her and raised his eyebrows. "Agent Scully, I'm not sure how you FBI types investigate crimes, but over here …. Sometimes all we have to go on is gut instinct. There is something wrong with this guy. I highly suggest that you don't go in there to talk to him alone."

"Well, it's a good thing that the FBI doesn't allow that isn't it Agent Scully?" Behnke replied sarcastically as he caught her attention with his eyes. He cocked his head to the right and walked back to the door.

"Does he have any priors?" Scully asked Miller as she paged through the employee statements.

"Yeah, he's in the system," Trooper Miller replied. He walked into another small room that was his temporary office and picked a report off the table. "He was arrested three years ago in Allentown for indecent exposure and public intoxication. The following year he was picked up by the sheriff's department for writing bad checks and selling marijuana in a school zone."

"Oh, well, he sounds like a winner," Scully quipped.

"Just like I said Agent Scully," Trooper Miller nodded. "The guy ain't right."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Agent Scully watched the sheriff's deputy handcuff Evan Stower and lead him out of the city hall building and to the waiting sheriff's vehicle outside the door. As the vehicle drove away, she leaned back against the door jam and sighed heavily. _Trooper Miller was right, _she thought to herself. _The guy isn't right … he's a nut case. _Her shoulders shuddered as she thought about the story he laid out for Agent Behnke and her.

"Dana?" Behnke called to her from down the hall.

Scully turned and walked down the hallway to the office where Behnke had been taking a phone call. She walked in the office, sat in the nearest chair, and tossed her notebook on the table. "I feel like a need a shower," she mumbled watching Behnke as he hung up the phone.

"Yeah, no kidding," he chuckled. "That guy …."

"Gives you the creeps?" Scully smiled. "I don't think that _creeps _quite describes the feeling I get from him. In fact, I'm not even sure if there is a word for it." Her shoulders shuddered again just thinking about their discussion. "How long until we get the search warrant?"

"Miller said he had a connection with the judge so hopefully no more than an hour," Behnke mumbled as he paged through the case notes. ""That was Agent Pendral on the phone. He pulled a partial print off the syringe and matched it to Mr. Heebeegeebee. Looks like we have a legitimate reason to hold him now, not just our _gut_."

"What? Besides the four other things he confessed to in our interview?" Scully replied with arched eyebrows. She picked up her note pad. "Sodomy, rape, theft, and murder in addition to however many others he may ramble on about in the future." She flipped the pad back on the table.

Behnke laughed at her. "Yeah, too bad he wasn't specific on whether he did those things to a real person, his teddy bear, or blow up doll." He stood up from the table. "Do you want a Coke?"

Scully burst into laughter at Behnke's comic routine. "Yes. I could use a caffeine jolt right about now, thank you." She leaned over and pulled the case file and her autopsy notes out of her briefcase. She could hear the clunk of the Coke can falling in the vending machine and her partner's step as he walked back up the hallway. "What else did Pendral have to say?" she asked when he came through the doorway.

"You mean, did he ask about you?" Behnke joked as he popped the top on her can and handed it to her. He watched Scully roll her eyes and shake her head with mild amusement. "He's faxing the report over. The syringe had trace amounts of that diaze…"

"Diazepam," Scully clarified as she rolled the cold Coke can across her forehead.

"What is that again?"

"Valium."

"Right, valium," Behnke repeated slowly, watching the forehead-cold can motion. _That's sexy, _he thought. He blinked and shook his head, shaking the crazy thoughts from it. "Do you…ah… have a headache? Do you need some Tylenol or something?" he stammered. _Keep your mind on the case Behnke! _he chided himself mentally.

"Do you have any?"

"Yeah," he replied and fished a Tylenol bottle out of his brief case. "Okay, so this is what we have so far …. Stower's fingerprint is on the syringe that contained the same tranquilizer that killed Julia. That same tranquilizer was one of the drugs reported missing from the pharmacy where Stower works, and ironically, he holds the keys to the building."

"Motive and the means," Scully blurted out. She popped two tablets into her mouth and took a sip of the soda to swallow it down.

"Means yes … but I question the motive," Behnke countered.

"How can you question the motive, he nearly admitted it just a few minutes ago!"

"I wouldn't classify that as an admission," Behnke said shaking his head. "He's delusional."

"He said he had sex with a "hot" woman and I believe by your own admission yesterday morning you grouped Julia in the "hottie" category," Scully argued.

"Yes, I did group Julia into the "hottie" category; however, Stower specifically said he had anal sex with a woman." He paused briefly and eyeballed her. _I can't believe I'm having this discussion with her_, he thought as he leaned in to make his point. _This is guy talk …. and Scully is far from any guy. _He shook his head at the irony of the discussion. "From my experience, or lack there of, most women aren't into that and face it, this guy is no Romeo which means if he had any kind of sex with her, he would have had to force himself on her." Behnke tilted his head and was quiet for a moment. "Or, that's why he drugged her. Did your autopsy…."

Scully flipped a page in the file. "No," she interrupted suddenly uncomfortable with the subject matter. "There was some irritation along the vaginal wall, which I attributed to a mild allergy to a prophylactic. There were no signs of sexual trauma. No semen or other fluid exchanges other than …." her voice trailed off. _Mulder, _she thought. She didn't need to say it aloud, because Behnke already knew.

"Which brings me back to my original point of why I question the motive," Behnke said standing up from the table. "If Stower wanted Julia for sexual reasons, why kill her?"

"Maybe it was an accident?" Scully said putting an idea on the table. "Maybe he was like most men and thought bigger was better. He gave her a huge dose of the tranquilizer to "relax" her and then discovered it was too much." The thought was a _little _out there, but they were only brainstorming. _Just trying to figure out Stower's frame of mind, _Scully reminded herself.

Behnke paced the room deep in thought. "Naah," he finally mumbled. "I would believe that if we found Julia anywhere but the river. That would be a plausible story if we found her, say … in a dumpster behind the pharmacy or that dive bar down the road from our hotel. This is just too clean. Too calculated," Behnke said leaning against the doorframe. "She was dumped in the river on purpose, to make it look like she just stumbled up there from the accident…like she was disoriented and wandered off."

Scully thought about the scenario a minute and then tilted her head to the side. "If the woman he was talking about in the interview wasn't Julia, why tell us the story at all? Why feed us bits of the truth, little details of what we barely know just to tease us?"

"Maybe he is trying to incriminate himself on another charge," Behnke said. A clerk from the front office walked down the hallway and handed him the fax from Agent Pendral just as his cell phone rang.

Behnke took the call and handed Scully the fax before he stepped into the hallway. Scully stared at the information on the form. The DNA from the semen she found on Julia's body was a match with Mulder's DNA. As she mulled over the details of the report, a thought popped into her head that rattled her to the core. _What if the woman in Stower's story wasn't a woman at all? _Her partner didn't give her time to think about it long.

"Dana, Miller's on the phone," Behnke said in the background. "He has the warrant and the Sheriff's department found the van."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scully stood in the doorway of a room in Stower's apartment and scanned the surroundings. The sight turned her stomach. _Please tell me Mulder wasn't in this room, _she thought as she pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket. She stepped into the room and made a mental note of the contents.

A small triage area filled the small space in front of her. An army cot stood in the center of the room, a half-empty IV bag dangled from a stand in the corner. A heart monitor sat on a small table near the head of the cot. Scully spied tanks at the head of the cot and walked over to look at the ID tags on their necks. _Oxygen and nitrous oxide, _she read pulling the tag to an angle where she could see it. She looked down at the cot and noticed a blood stain on the fabric. She walked around the cot and squatted down to the side of it. She ran her finger across the stain, which was dry, while she sized up the location to the position of a body on it. As she was thinking about who was lying on this cot last, she saw something out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to the corner of the room.

The white bloodstained fabric drew her in as she reached over to pick it up. It was a men's dress shirt. _It's Mulder's, _she thought running her finger over the collar. She instinctively brought the shirt to her nose and sniffed it, checking for any cologne residue. The odor reminded her of Mulder. _It's Mulder's, _she thought again.

"Geezus, what the hell happened in here?"

Scully whirled around on her heel and looked over at her partner with a startled expression on her face. "I don't know," she stammered, rattled by his abrupt entrance into the room. "Nothing good," she added.

"That much is obvious," Behnke said walking into the room. He stopped at the foot of the cot and looked down at the floor under the cot. "What're you doing down here, little fella?" he mumbled squatting down to reach under the cot. He pulled his gloved hand out from under the cot revealing a small pocketknife. The bloodstained blade was in the open position. "Want to wander a guess as to whose blood is on this?"

Dana crossed her hands at her chest. "One of two people," she said as she stood stoically. "Stower's or Mulder's."

"Why Mulder's?" Behnke questioned her.

Scully held up the shirt. "This belongs to Mulder," she replied flatly.

"It's a white shirt," he replied as he took it from her hand. "Do you recognize it or something? How do you know it's his?"

"The cologne," she said running her tongue across her lip. "It's Mulder's."

"Just because the scent is the same, doesn't mean Mulder was here," Behnke reminded her.

"Yeah, well, I hope that's the case because I don't want to imagine what happened in this room," she replied ruefully looking around again.

"Besides someone playing doctor?" Behnke asked arching his eyebrows. "Let's bag and tag the room and then get this stuff to Pendral in the crime lab."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scully paced across her hotel room and looked at her wristwatch for the umpteenth time in the past hour. It was 10 p.m. The evidence from Stower's apartment had arrived in D.C. over four hours ago and the waiting game was weighing heavily on her patience. She walked to the table where the case file sat and scanned through her notes. They had recovered all the missing medical equipment and had accounted for about half of the missing drugs. Behnke and Miller had gone back to the sheriff's department an hour ago to attempt to get an admission from Stower about Mulder's whereabouts.

Scully picked up the case notes and sat down against the head of the bed. She flipped through the pages mindlessly while her mind wandered to the plight of her partner. The longer Mulder was missing, the less likely the chances he would be found alive. They had been on the case for almost thirty-six hours and based on the estimated time of the accident, Mulder had been missing almost seventy-two hours.

"Mulder where are you?" she said aloud to no one. She closed her eyes as she thought about him and flashed back to a conversation they had once upon a time.

_"Scully, if I was lost would you find me?" _

_"Driving or otherwise?"_

_"Otherwise," he said with a grin. _

"_Considering you never gave up on me," she said staring into his eyes. "I wouldn't give up on you." _

"I won't give up on you Mulder," she mumbled as her eyelids began to close. "I'll figure this out. I'll find you."

tbc


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Wednesday Morning.

His body twitched against the mattress, and he slowly opened his eyes. Making no movement with his torso or limbs, he assessed the room that held him captive. His eyes darted from wall to wall, corner to corner, from the window to the door taking in the sites. His senses were tuned in, listening carefully for any sound, any movement, and any breath besides his own. When he was sure he was alone, he breathed a sigh of relief and sunk into the mattress.

The comfort it afforded him was in contrast with his dire situation. The room was peaceful and inviting like those that adorned the pages of home decorating magazines. The woman that kept him here was young yet smart. _Very smart_. Playing on the sexual fantasies of every red- blooded man…tying him to a bed, traipsing around the room scantily clad in black lingerie or a naughty nurses uniform. She was attractive and physically appealing. Resisting her advances was difficult and she preyed on his inability.

She had come again this morning and taken her liberty with him. Under the premise of giving him a much-needed sponge bath, she played mind games with him, lured him into a false sense of security. She had gotten his attention in more ways then one. She was gentle and erotic at first, teasing him with her body, her hands, and her lips. However, as her need for fulfillment reached its boiling point, her hunger became uncontrollable. She attacked him using her body as a weapon and, when she didn't get the results she desired, she lashed out at him with her fingernails and fists. He didn't even fight back, not that he could if he wanted too. Besides being restrained to the bed frame at the wrists and ankles, he was weakened by the lack of nourishment and the drugs in his system. He was acutely aware of the ice cold liquid that invaded his veins and the sensations it produced in him. The tingly, odd, out of control feeling overpowered his judgment and weakened his defenses. He had learned quickly that the best defense he had was to lie there and endure whatever she dished out until it was over and she was gone. His solace was the solitude as it settled around him, allowing himself to contemplate his situation and determine his means to escape.

The irony of his situation was clear. For all the years he worked in the Violent Crimes Unit and the countless sexual assault interviews he had completed he had never been able to wrap his mind around the experiences of the victim. He never understood how someone could just give in and let certain events take place. He chuckled quietly as he remembered how many times he had asked the victims if they had made their intentions clear … if they had verbalized _stop, no, don't_ and how many times he had questioned the integrity of their statements. Now none of that mattered, at least not to him. No investigator was ever going to cause him to doubt whether there had been a way he could have fought back or escaped. No psychologist was ever going to quell his fear of being touched. No one ... Not even his partner.

"Scully," he mumbled aloud. The memory of her flooded his mind, her red hair and stubborn scientific rationalization. She was his closest friend and in so many ways much more than that to him. She was the extension of his conscious, the piece of the puzzle that had always been missing from his life. He knew in his heart that she was looking for him, just as he had looked for her three years ago when she was abducted.

As memories of Scully enveloped him and soothed his troubled soul, his brain began to tune in sounds that he had previously blocked. Suddenly, he could hear birds chirping outside the windows and felt a cool breeze tease his skin. He turned his head toward the window and realized it had been left open about an inch. The blind was pulled up about an inch and the world outside was visible to him for the first time in days. He blinked as the natural light filled the room and scanned his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time.

_The first time as an investigator, _he thought as he thought about escape. He lifted his head from the pillow and tested the resistance of the restraints. _If I put a little effort in this I could get free, _he contemplated looking up at the bed frame. The wood frame he was handcuffed had to have some give ….._with the right amount of pressure._ He pulled his left arm forcefully toward his feet attempting to break the wooden slat of the headboard. The attempt lasted only a few minutes, his strength dwindling quickly. A headache flooded over him and he suddenly felt weak and dizzy.

"I feel like crap!" he said aloud to no one wincing in pain from the headache and the abdominal cramping that had just started up. He looked up at the IV bag hanging over his head and found the bag empty. "Well, no wonder," he mumbled rolling his head to the side. He tried to focus his mind and count the days since he had been taken "hostage" by the woman. "Two …. Three days? No food or water other than that bag of tainted fluid?" he growled quietly. "I couldn't break free from this trap if I was tied with dental floss." He tried to pull against his bindings and moaned loudly in frustration and then sank into the mattress in defeat.

He was quiet for a moment hearing only the sounds of nature filtering into the room from the window. For the first time in days his thoughts drifted to Julia. _If I've been here for three days … then what about Julia, _he contemplated staring out the window. _What happened to her? Did these two psychos kidnap her too? _He closed his eyes trying to remember the details of the accident.

"She's probably dead," he muttered quietly as he imaged her crumpled body in the passenger side of the car. The memory had reminded him that she had taken her seatbelt off to get something out of her overnight bag in the backseat. The view of her behind sticking up in the air had distracted him. Julia was beautiful and it was hard not to notice her figure in any type of situation. He had been watching her in the rearview mirror and the momentary lapse in concentration had been just enough to take his focus off driving. Torrential downpours had made driving near impossible after they had left the resort. Without warning glaring headlights were blinding him. It had been a near head on collision. He swerved at the last minute and the car spun wildly out of control down the embankment. "If the accident didn't kill her … then these two whack-jobs probably did," he mused as he looked up at the headboard. "I bet _she_ will try to kill me once she is done toying with my dick," he said. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. _I'm not sticking around to find out," _he thought as he scooted his torso upward on the bed and began to pull his arm against his restraints again.

TBC.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Wednesday Morning

Noise from the bullpen area of the sheriff's department droned on in the background as Agent Scully sat at her temporary desk. She sighed heavily and steepled her hands in front of her face as she skimmed the lab analysis report from Agent Pendral for the tenth time. She pushed her chair back and stood to make another trek to the coffee pot. She poured herself a cup of the dark liquid and mindlessly dumped cream and sugar into it.

"What's that scowl about?" the voice of her temporary partner Derick Behnke said from the rear.

"It's not from lack of sleep," she answered as she turned to face him. "For the record, I was _not_ here all night."

"I know," he replied tossing the case file on the desk. "I _was, _and I tried to call you twice. No answer."

"I was sleeping," Scully said. She took a sip of her coffee.

"By the looks of it, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Behnke replied sarcastically. He walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. "What's wrong with you?"

"Pendral faxed me the lab results."

"And?"

"The blood on the knife belongs to Stower. Pendral was able to lift a print from it," she began as she walked to the desk and set the cup down. She noticed her hands were shaking and suddenly she felt sick to her stomach. The rest of Pendral's report was a little disturbing and eerily matched Stower's statement from the day before. She turned around and leaned against the desk for support. "It's Mulder's. The blood stain on the cot matches Mulder's DNA as well," she added.

"Good," Behnke replied dryly. "The evidence matches his story then."

"What?" Scully asked. She felt her cheeks get hot. _If the evidence matches his story…., _her mind raced frantically. Behnke interrupted her train of thought before she could tell him the rest of the report

"With a little well-timed pressure from Trooper Miller," Behnke began. "Stower finally admitted that Mulder _was_ in his apartment for the last couple of days. How he got there is still a little sketchy though. He claimed he found him hitchhiking on the highway."

"Where's he now?" Scully blurted out, a little too loudly. Several heads in the office turned to look in her direction. Scully felt the eyes boring into the back of her head. Behnke pretended not to notice.

"Well, that too remains the million dollar mystery," Behnke replied in a twisted half grimace. "Stower claims he doesn't know what happened to him. Apparently, sometime Monday night Mulder managed to jump Stower when he entered the room. Mulder slashed his arm open with the knife and then clocked him with his fist. Stower claimed the blow knocked him out. When he woke up, Mulder was gone."

"Just like that?" Scully retorted in disbelief. It was unlikely that Mulder left Stower's apartment on his own. If he had, they wouldn't be looking for him anymore. She shook her head and sat down at her desk.

"Well, it's a start …. Obviously he's leaving some key details out, but it's better than what we had yesterday Dana," Behnke countered as he watched her facial expression. Her face was a somber slate. "Dana," he said again when she didn't respond to him. "Sumthin you're not telling me?"

She sighed and fanned the air with the faxed copy of the report. "Pendral found semen stains on the cot."

Behnke rolled his eyes. He knew where she was going with this and it wasn't anything productive. "It's a cot Dana," he replied flippantly. "Maybe it's the only place he has sex or maybe…" he paused and waved his arm in the air. "Maybe it's where he whacks off. Whatever the case, its nothing we need to be focusing on right now."

"Its nothing?" Scully questioned him. "Need I remind you that just yesterday Stower admitted to having anal sex with someone?"

Behnke rolled his eyes. _She's just not going to let that go, _he thought as he walked across the room to stand next to Scully's desk. "I believe the correct term is that he _claimed_ to have anal sex with not just someone …. a "hot" female," he replied evenly. "That claim has yet to be substantiated."

"And the semen stains aren't enough?"

"No."

"Unbelievable," Scully muttered under her breath. She flicked the paper on the desk and leaned back in her chair. "Well, it obviously wasn't Julia! So that only leaves Mulder! He was the only person in the apartment."

"What … suddenly you have a crystal ball that you aren't telling me about Agent Scully?" Behnke questioned her quietly. He could feel the stares from the other occupants in the room and tried to bring the volume of their debate to a less noticeable level. "You can't make an assumption that Mulder was the only person in Stower's apartment the past couple of days. We don't know who was there. Maybe he was hosting a swinger's banquet." He shrugged his shoulders and looked down at her, the glare emanating from her eyes could have melted ice. _None of this speculation is productive and is just going to drive her crazy, _he thought trying to figure out how to reign in her focus. He crossed his arms at his chest and looked down at the floor. "Dana, why do you keep focusing on that?"

"Doesn't it bother you?" she asked him. She looked up at him with pleading eyes and was met with one of those "Mulder-like" stares that silently berated her to focus on the assignment.

"Yeah, it bothers the crap out of me, but it isn't going to help me find Mulder," Behnke replied flatly. "We can't get caught up in "what ifs." He leaned across the desk and picked up the report. He skimmed the information on the paper and looked back at Scully. "What's this mumbo-jumbo about the urine collection pouch?" He handed the report back to her and arched his eyebrows looking for an answer. He was setting her up. He could easily read the report himself, but he needed his partner to focus.

Scully ran her tongue over her lips and took the report back from him. "The residual urine in the pouch is Mulder's. Pendral was able to lift a fingerprint from the outside of the pouch, but it's not Stower's."

"Did he fax a copy of it?"

"Yes," Scully replied and thumbed through some papers on the desk. After a second, she found the fax of the fingerprint and handed it to Behnke.

Behnke stared at the copy and then turned the paper sideways to see it from a different angle. "It's not very clear," he mumbled.

"It's a fax copy, Derick," Scully answered. "It's going to be a little distorted."

"It looks like a woman's hand," he mumbled tracing the image with his finger.

Scully tilted her head and looked at him. "You think?"

Behnke nodded and turned the paper another way. "Yeah, definitely a woman," he said handing it back to her. "It's too slender to be a male."

"We don't even know if it's a full print," Scully argued.

"It's a full print," Behnke said leaning over the desk. "See here? The shaft is thin. Only a woman's hand is that thin," he replied tracing the fingerprint.

"I've seen men's fingers that were thin," she replied.

"And I've seen some fat female digits too," he said. "But I think that belongs to a woman."

"I agree," she replied with a sly grin.

"Why the argument then?" he looked down at her out of the corner of his eye and caught the smile on her face.

"It wasn't exactly an argument. I just wanted to get your opinion about it," Scully replied with a chuckle. "I'm starting to buy into your _Female Abductor_ profile."

"Oh, so you baited me?" Behnke smiled at her. "What changed? Yesterday you nearly stabbed me with your fingernails at the mere mention of it."

Scully bit her lip and sighed. Behnke's profile was right all along and her distraction over her partner's disappearance was clouding her judgment. _Mulder accused me of the same thing on the stigmata case, _she mentally chided herself._ If I hadn't been so consumed with the prospect of losing Mulder I would have been working with Behnke rather than against him. _She cleared her throat and swallowed. "I, ahh, reviewed the inventory of the missing drugs from the pharmacy," she started pulling the report from the case file. "There were three that caught my attention, specifically clomiphene citrate, sildenafal citrate and folic acid."

"Folic acid is Vitamin B," Behnke replied with a perplexed expression on his face. "I have no clue about the other two."

"They're fertility drugs more or less. Both are in their experimental stages. Clomiphene citrate makes conditions for ovulation more likely and increases the production of eggs," Scully replied matter-a-factly.

"Ah huh," Behnke said with a smirk. "So you are coming over to my side of the fence."

"Not that I wanted to believe it," Scully replied ruefully. "But it was hard not to after I found the sildenafal citrate on the missing drug list."

"What is that anyway?"

"Its being tested to combat erectile dysfunction."

"Erectile dysfunct….?" Behnke gasped in response. "You mean guys that …"

"Can't get it up to put it bluntly," Scully replied dryly. "Or men that can't _keep it in play_."

"Ouch!" Behnke winced. "The image _that_ draws on my mental _etch a sketch _is…aghhhh!!" He looked over at Scully and caught the glaring look that she was giving him. _She's not amused, _he thought looking down at the inventory sheet. _I bet Mulder isn't either. _The thought of being tied to a bed with some lunatic female pumping _erectile dysfunction _drugs into his system for her perverse pleasure...made his skin crawl. It certainly made his erotic fantasy of being a sex slave less appealing. Behnke shook his head to clear the thought from his mind and changed the subject. "Wait a minute, wouldn't a guy have to have some type of interest in engaging in such activity for the drug to work?"

"Or a vivid imagination?" Scully commented under her breath. "That's where the Valium comes into play."

Behnke glanced over at her with a perplexed expression on his face. "I'm not following."

"It's a tranquilizer. It relaxes you, diminishes inhibitions," Scully replied leaning forward on the desk in a more conversational manner.

"I get that part," Behnke said leaning against the desk behind him. He took notice of Scully's posture and noticed for the first time in days that she was relaxed and more confident of herself. _Finally,_ he thought as he watched her. _Now we can get some work done. _"What I don't understand is how … I mean, if I'm not interested nothing is going to happen, no matter how much she tries to entice me."

"You might not being saying that if you had had a cocktail of Valium and sildenafal citrate," Scully answered. "The combination wouldn't give you much choice."

"Geezus!" Behnke muttered under his breath. He pushed off from the desk and paced across the room. "So our suspect is obsessed with getting pregnant," he summarized. He ran his hand across his brow. _I'm getting a headache just thinking about it, _he thought. "How fast does that stuff work?" he asked Scully turning back to face her.

"Not overnight if that's what you are thinking," Scully answered. "The clomiphene citrate is taken for five days before the ovulation cycle starts, and there is no guarantee that it will work the first time. Most patients have to complete one cycle before the drug works."

"And where does the vitamin B play in?" he asked mindlessly as he tried to understand Mulder's predicament.

"There's an ole wives tale that a regiment of folic acid increases fertility," Scully answered.

"Starting both on Sunday wouldn't make someone extra fertile?" Behnke smirked. It wasn't funny but in a way it was. _I knew the suspect was delusional_ he chuckled to himself. "Would it safe to assume that the person that catheterized Mulder had some type of medical background?" he watched her nod. "So besides being obsessed with having a baby, our suspect is a nurse or EMT or…"

"Nurses Aide," Scully replied handing him a file folder. "I reviewed the interviews from the female employees. There are five women. Three made a complaint about Stower, two didn't. One was Evelyn Randle. She was the first employee interviewed and has only worked at the pharmacy for two weeks. The other was Leslie Kraft. She said Stower was eccentric and that she found him interesting," Scully arched her eyebrows before continuing. "She has worked at the pharmacy for a year and conveniently enough also works at the local retirement home as a nurse's aide."

"Leslie Kraft," he mumbled staring at her employment application. "Why does her name sound familiar?"

"I don't know," Scully replied, even though she knew it was a rhetorical question. "Maybe it's because you are suffering from macaroni and cheese deprivation." She smiled innocently across the desk.

"Okay … you got jokes now," he chuckled. "It's amazing what a cup of coffee and some medical jargon will do for a person. Where's the inventory of the crap we took out of Stower's apartment?"

Scully pulled the inventory out of the case file and handed it to him. "What're you looking for?" she asked.

He scanned the sheet quickly. "Ahh haa!" he said with a smile. He walked across the room to the evidence lockers in the corner. He rummaged through the locker that contained Stower's apartment contents and pulled a bag from the pile. He walked back across the room and tossed the bag on Scully's desk.

"It's a checkbook," Scully mumbled flipping it over in her hand. "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Open the bag," he replied sitting on the edge of the desk.

Scully reached for a latex glove and snapped it on her right hand. She cut the bag open with a scowl on her face, dumped the checkbook out on the desk and flipped it open. "Leslie Kraft," she read from the check.

"Exactly how eccentric and interesting was Stower?" Behnke arched his eyebrows. "I found that under his couch."

"We should send this to Pendral so he can check for fingerprints. Hopefully he can match them to the one found on the pouch," Scully said.

"Naah, that'll take too long," Behnke said folding the old evidence bag and dropping it into a new one. He held the bag open and beckoned Scully to put the checkbook in it. "I'll have Gayle run it while we're out picking up Ms. Kraft."

"Gayle?"

"The evidence technician that works here," Behnke explained.

"You're on a first name basis with her?" She eyed him suspiciously. "And here I thought you were _working _all last night."

"I was! But she gives a great neck and shoulder rub," Behnke gloated and winked at Scully. "She's cute too."

"Oh brother," Scully scowled under her breath. She picked up the phone and began to dial the number for the pharmacy to see if Ms. Kraft was working.

Behnke chuckled at her response and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "You know, if you'd stop sweating the small stuff and look around once in a while, you'd notice that Deputy Haines over there has been checking you out for the past two days and he's definitely interested." He cocked his head in the deputy's direction and pushed himself off the desk.

Scully was speechless as she watched Behnke walk away. She glanced across the room and noticed that Deputy Haines was staring at her. She felt her face get hot and realized at the last minute that the pharmacy had answered the phone.

"Yes, sorry," she mumbled into the phone suddenly feeling sheepish. "Can I speak to Mr. Jordan?"

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

A/N Thanks to everyone for the reviews!!! Sorry this installment is late. Real life had the never to get in my way. :-)

Chapter 10

Wednesday Afternoon

Scully crossed her arms at her chest and leaned against the door frame of the interview room as she listened to Agent Behnke and Trooper Miller ask their suspect question after question. Leslie Kraft was an attractive woman, long brown hair, green eyes, and a slim stature. _She looks a little like Julia, _Scully thought as she sized up the woman. _So, what the hell is she doing with that Stower creep? _She glanced down at her watch and noted that they had been questioning Ms. Kraft for nearly an hour without her admitting to anything. The woman seemed intelligent and it was almost plausible that she wasn't involved in Mulder's disappearance. Almost…there was something about her that just _wasn't_ right. Scully just couldn't put her finger on it.

Dana rolled her neck on her shoulders and sighed. She heard her stomach growl and her thoughts began to wander about lunch. _A nice chicken Caesar salad would go good right about now,_ she thought. She cleared her throat and looked over at Behnke. When he looked up at her, she tapped her lips to tell him that she was hungry. She watched him nod and then immediately knew he had misunderstood her by his next statement.

"So, Ms. Kraft, what happened to your lip?" Behnke asked her pointing at his own lip. Kraft's lip was swollen and bruised as if she had been in a fight. Behnke winked at Scully standing over in the corner.

_Ughh, you idiot! _Scully guffawed silently from the corner. _I'm hungry! Not what happened to your lip? _Scully glared at her partner from across the room. She noticed Kraft squirming in her seat at his mention of her lip. _She's hiding something, _Scully concluded watching the woman's body language.

"It's nothing," the woman mumbled running her hand nervously over her mouth.

"It looks like more than nothing," Behnke commented flatly.

"No … my boyfriend…"

"Your boyfriend what?" Behnke interrupted. "Hit you?"

The woman blushed and shook her head. "No, he'd never hurt me," she replied. "He ummm… bit me."

"He bit you?" Trooper Miller repeated in disbelief. The three law enforcement professionals shot glances back and forth around the room.

"Yeah, ummm we're trying to have a baby and _things_ got a little out of hand," Kraft explained looking up at Miller and Behnke. "You know how it is," she added nervously.

"No, I don't," Miller retorted as he towered above her. "Your boyfriend got a name?"

"He's not from around here," she stammered barely audible. "You wouldn't know him."

"You are absolutely right, Ms. Kraft!" Behnke exclaimed sarcastically, getting bored with the interview. _I'm fricken hungry, dammit! What the hell was Scully thinking making me ask her about the lip? _"None of us would know your boyfriend because we're not from here either!"

Kraft laughed nervously and leaned back in her chair. "Oh, yeah, you're right." She bit her lip and ducked her head to her chest. When no one said anything, she looked back up and darted her eyes from Behnke to Miller. "What?"

"Are you deaf?" Miller asked pacing around behind her chair. "What is your boyfriend's name?"

"What's he got to do with this?" Kraft asked.

Behnke had had about enough. He slammed his hand down on the table. "His name dammit!!!!"

"George Hale." The name tumbled out of Kraft's mouth as pounding on the desk jolted her from her cover story.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scully felt the color drain from her face as the name echoed in her head. _George Hale. _She retreated from the room and slammed the door behind her. She stepped away from the door and put her hand against the wall to steady herself as she gulped for air. The revelation of the boyfriend's name knocked the wind right out of Scully's lungs.

It was Mulder's name … _cover name. _He had used it on a case or two their first year of working together and had used it to contact her when they were reassigned after the X-files had been closed. _There is no way in hell that is just a coincidence, _she thought feeling tears stinging her eyes. _Mulder is leaving bread crumbs for me. First his shirt, now the name. _

"Dana, you okay?" Behnke said from behind her jolting her from her thoughts.

Scully wiped the tears from her eyes before turning to face the two men. "How long until you can get the search warrant?" Scully asked Miller directly before the door to the interview room was even closed.

"Well, ahh," the trooper stammered, startled by her abruptness.

"We don't have anything on Kraft to even get the warrant," Behnke replied as she paced the hallway.

"The hell we don't!!" Scully fired back. Scully could feel the blood boiling in her veins. "She has Mulder or knows where he is," she added waving her arms around.

"Excuse me?" Behnke questioned. "We don't know that."

"She just admitted it!"

_What the hell is she talking about? _Behnke stared at her. "Admitted what?"

"George Hale!"

"The boyfriend?" Behnke asked perplexed. "How is saying his name a confession about Mulder?"

_Ughhh! Idiot! _Scully thought as she threw her hands up in frustration. "I thought you and Mulder were friends," she muttered.

"We are!" Behnke retorted, still trying to figure her out. "I just don't know where you are going with this?"

"Because George Hale is Mulder's code name," Scully replied firmly and slowly. She shot Behnke a look that would melt ice.

"Code name?" Trooper Miller repeated in the background. "Like spy stuff?"

Scully took a deep breath in an attempt to calm her anger-riddled voice. "I guess that's one way to put it," she replied coolly. "It's a name he's used in undercover operations."

"Or, when he's picking up chicks at the bar," Behnke blurted out, just as the light bulb flickered on. He caught the tail end of another death stare. He paused a moment and looked down at the floor. It _was _a little ironic that she would say the same name. "Dana, it could be a coincidence," he offered, trying to play devil's advocate.

"Like hell!" Scully replied. She snatched the case file out of his hand and pulled Mulder's photo from it. "Your profile was right all along Derick. The pharmacy owner, Mr. Jordan, said Kraft was obsessed with having a baby. She constantly talked about babies, about how many times she tried to get pregnant, bought baby things, picked out baby names …ughh! She drove everyone crazy with the baby talk! She knows where Mulder is … and she is probably trying to impregnate herself with his baby!!! And I am damn sure going to prove it!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Leslie Kraft sat with her legs crossed at the knee, fingers drumming mindlessly on the tabletop. She looked at her watch for the fifth time in five minutes. _This is a waste of my time, _she thought as she stared blankly at the table top. _Just keep playing it cool, and they don't have anything on me. There is no proof that I had anything to do with the break-in at the pharmacy. _

The abrupt departure of her interviewers didn't concern her much. _I've seen enough cop shows in TV to know it's just an intimidation tactic, _she reassured herself. The state trooper looked like he ate too many day-old donuts in his life. The woman seemed bored and, even though she had barely said anything during the course of the conversation, came off as bitchy. _The other guy is kinda cute though, _Leslie smiled to herself. _I wonder what his babies would look like? _She absent-mindedly ran her hand over her stomach and patted it. _My baby is going to be beautiful. _

Her thoughts were interrupted when the door suddenly swung open and the trio of law enforcement officers re-entered the room. _It's about time,_ she said silently as she crossed her arms at her chest. She watched the three take their "positions" in the room as if they had been assigned.

"How much longer am I going to be here?" Kraft asked as they walked around the small room. The younger guy stopped in front of her on the other side of the table. The trooper leaned up against the door as if he was guarding it … so she couldn't escape. The red-hair woman paced around the room and despite her short stature tried to loom over her with her three-inch heels.

"Why?" Scully asked putting the case file on the table. "Got somewhere to go?" she asked smartly.

"Yeah, my boyfriend is waiting for me," Kraft replied. "We got plans this afternoon."

"Really," Behnke responded. He pulled the chair out from the desk, turned the chair around backward and sat down on it. He rested his arms on the back of the chair and leaned toward her. "More beatings?"

"No," she replied with a scowl. "I told you, we're trying to have a baby. My temperature is right for conception today."

"Well, that's too bad," Behnke chuckled sadistically. "Because you're going to be here for awhile."

_What? There is no fricken way they can keep me here! _"On what grounds?" Kraft howled. "You can't keep me!"

The redhead pulled a photo from the file and slapped it on the table in front of her. "Have you seen this man?"

Leslie stared at the photo and tried to keep a poker face. The image on the photo was her new boyfriend, _George, _as she had nicknamed him… .the man she needed to get home too. _Oh crap! How do they know about him? Play it cool, _she shrugged and pushed the photo way from her. "No," she replied and shook her head. "I don't know'em."

"You sure about that?" Miller asked her from the other side of the table.

"I've never seen the guy before," Kraft said, half nodding half shaking her head.

Scully paced around the small room. The heels of her shoes clicked against the linoleum flooring and echoed against the wall. "Never seen the guy before," Scully repeated slowly. "Have you seen this?" she asked tossing the checkbook on the table.

Kraft stared at the book, which was flipped open in the evidence bag revealing her name on the check. "That's my checkbook," Kraft responded. "Where did you…how did you get it?" She felt her pulse quicken and stomach flip.

"We found it under the couch at Evan Stower's apartment," Behnke started staring Kraft down, "while we were executing a search warrant yesterday."

"We recovered all the medical equipment stolen from the pharmacy in Stower's apartment," Miller piped in from the corner. "And dusted everything for fingerprints."

"We know for a fact that this man was in Stower's apartment for two days earlier this week," Scully added pacing to the other side of the desk. "We found a urine collection pouch containing his urine hanging off the side of a cot in the apartment. We lifted a print off the outside of the pouch," Scully continued.

"It matches prints found on this checkbook," Behnke finished off. He leveled his gaze on her. "Ready to change your story yet?"

As the constant cadence of statements flooded Leslie's ears, the voices became muffled in the background. She could feel her pulse racing. The pounding of her heartbeat in her ear was deafening. She was busted! Of course they would be able to match the fingerprints on the checkbook to the pouch! _Evan is a jackass!! _she pondered quickly thinking about how much of a slob he was. On any given day, the apartment was a trash pit. _Go figure that he didn't clean up his apartment and left all the evidence there! _

Kraft sunk down in her chair. "I don't who he is," she mumbled not making eye contact with any of the three. It wasn't exactly a lie….she knew him only as George. She made up the last name. She knew nothing more about him and had never seen him before that fateful trip to the lake last Sunday.

"But you have seen him before?" Miller prompted.

Leslie was quiet for a moment, considering her options as she formulated her answer. _They're fishing, _she gathered based on the trooper's question. She decided to blame this on all Evan to save herself. "Maybe."

"When?" the redhead asked.

"Late Sunday night …Evan asked me to help him with the medical stuff because the guy was in a car accident," Kraft explained.

"And you didn't think to call the authorities about it?" Scully asked.

"What'd'ya mean?" Kraft asked.

"You didn't find it strange that he was keeping an injured man in his apartment and not in the hospital?" Behnke replied evenly.

"I dunno. I didn't ask any questions." Kraft shrugged her shoulders.

"You didn't ask any questions?" Trooper Miller repeated from the corner. "This isn't the dark ages lady … it's not normal to house injured people anywhere but in a hospital!"

_Crap! I screwed up! _Leslie thought looking back down at the picture. _I should have said that Evan threatened me not to say anything. _"Evan said I would be sorry if I told anyone. Who is he anyway? Is he a criminal?"

Scully pulled Mulder's badge and ID card out her pocket and flipped it open on the table in front of her. "He is an FBI agent that has been missing since Saturday."

"You do realize that aiding in the abduction and false imprisonment of a federal agent is a felony offense," Behnke said getting up from the chair and pushing it hard against the table. The scraping noise made her jump. "That will get you … oh.. say seven .. eight years in prison."

"I didn't abduct him!" Leslie cried out looking up, her eyes darting between Agent Behnke and Scully.

"You treated him while he was being unlawfully restrained and did nothing to notify authorities Ms. Kraft," Scully replied evenly leaning over the table.

"That's a felony?" Kraft stammered not believing her ears. _I am not going to jail for this! It was Evan's fricken idea. All I said was the guy was cute! I didn't tell him to knock him in the head and drag him into the van. _

"Yes it is," the three answered in unison.

"You could help yourself," Behnke commented to her.

She looked up and watched him pace around the table. "What do you mean?" she asked not understanding where he was going with the statement.

Behnke sat back down on the chair and leaned toward the table. "Tell us where he is and," Behnke winked at her, "maybe we can work out a deal."

Leslie stared at him blankly as a flashback from an NYPD Blue episode floated through her head. She envisioned Jimmy Smits making the same appeal to his suspect to gain trust. _They don't know where he is! _she concluded looking at him carefully. "Why would I know?" she finally said after feeling all eyes boring down on her.

"You don't know where he is?" Scully asked. It was more a statement than a question.

Leslie arched her eyebrows and scanned the room. "No."

"Are you sure about that?" Scully chirped from behind her.

"Did I stutter?" Leslie quipped glaring up at Agent Behnke. She locked eyes with him and put on her best poker face. _God, he is so cute! His eyes could melt butter, _she thought holding his gaze. "Why don't you ask Evan?"

"We did," Behnke replied softly never losing eye contact with her. "He said you would know."

Leslie felt her face get hot, but she tried to remain cool. "Excuse me?" she muttered, her voice slightly raised. "Why would I know where this … guy is?" she asked waving her hand at the table.

"Because you are trying to have a baby," Behnke replied softly.

_What the frick does that have to do with anything? _Leslie thought as she stared at him with a perplexed expression on her face. _These guys are amateurs! Detective Sipowitz would have broken me by now, _she chuckled smugly.

"You find that funny?" Agent Scully fired off in the background.

"What does my wanting a baby have to do with this FBI guy being missing?" Leslie asked quizzically.

"Come on Leslie, admit it," Scully whispered in her ear leaning over her shoulder. The agent's voice was thick and raspy and gave Kraft the chills. "Your desperate need to have a baby …. a handsome man that is too weak to protest…. The temptation of the erotic sex slave fantasy was too easy."

The words cut through Leslie like a knife. _That isn't who I am. I'm not that person, _her mind reeled from the bluntness of the accusation. _He wants to be with me. He reciprocates when we are together! _Leslie pulled away from Scully's head and looked at her in disgust. "What are you some kind of sicko?" Leslie guffawed. "I am a medical professional! I would never take advantage of an injured person like that. What do you think I am? Some kind of stark raving lunatic?"

"You really don't want me to answer that," Scully muttered pushing away from the chair. "You aren't helping yourself."

"I …." Leslie shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Other than treating this guy in Evan's apartment I don't see where I have any reason to …..have to help myself." She darted her eyes from Scully to Miller and then leveled her gaze on Behnke. She softened her stare as she looked at him. _I think we've made a connection. Just look innocent! _she told herself as she unconsciously looked at her watch.

"Got somewhere to go?" Miller called out from the corner.

"Huh?"

"You keep looking at your watch," Behnke said nodded her direction. "In a hurry?"

"Yeah, I said before I need to go home," Leslie replied defensively. "I got something to take care of."

"Oh, what is it?" Miller said sarcastically. "We can take care of it while we are there."

"What? What do you mean while you are there?"

"We can check on it while we are executing the search warrant," Behnke said flatly getting up from the chair.

"Search warrant?" Leslie blurted out. "Looking for what?" _They're bluffing. They can't search my apartment. _

"Agent Fox Mulder," Scully replied sternly from the side of the table. "_My partner_."

_Partner? No wonder why she's so bitchy! He didn't put out for her … or maybe she didn't put out for him … which is why he was with that other girl, _Leslie thought as she stared at the table. She bit her lip and re-crossed her arms at her chest.

"Worried what we'll find there?" Scully asked Kraft.

"No."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Go look all you want," Leslie replied smugly. "He's not there."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scully leaned against the hood of the car. Kraft was right, Mulder wasn't at her apartment. She sighed dejectedly and kicked a rock that was on the driveway by her foot. _So close, _she thought ruefully as she scanned the neighborhood. Scully caught sight of Behnke walking toward her out of the corner of her eye.

"Just talked to her landlord," he said slightly out of breath. "She hasn't been here in a week." He threw the case file on the hood of the car.

"That's crap," Scully replied shaking her head. "She has him."

"Where though?" Behnke asked. "She exuded confidence about his not being here an hour ago."

"Exuded confidence?" Scully replied looking up at Behnke with arched eyebrows. "Hardly …. I felt like wiping that smug look right off her face."

"I could tell," Behnke replied with a chuckle. "I thought Miller was going to have to jump you from the corner." At that Scully laughed. It was the first time she had laughed in days and although she didn't want to admit it, it felt good. Behnke took notice and watched her face. _Man, she's beautiful … especially when she is laughing, _he thought as he reveled in the moment.

"Where is Miller anyway?" Scully said still chuckling for the mental image of the stocky state trooper lunging at her from the corner.

"He went to the retirement home to interview Kraft's boss," Behnke said sitting down on the hood of the car. "Trying to figure out a different angle."

"Hmm, good," Scully replied. She was quiet for a minute as she contemplated Mulder's plight. "We need a different angle….this is so frustrating."

"I know," Behnke replied reaching out for her hand. He grasped it tightly. "But we're going to find him. It's a small town. She can't hide him forever."

Scully smiled weakly and nodded. She felt the strength in his grip and the confident belief in his words. Scully squeezed his hand back, taking in the energy emanating from him. She released his hand just as a roaring car engine in the street caught their attention. Scully looked up to see Trooper Miller pulling up in his squad car.

"Hey!" he yelled from the open car window. "Follow me! I got a lead!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scully looked at her watch for the umpteenth time and sighed. They had been in the car for twenty minutes now, driving down the state highway that curved into a dense wooded area. She stared out the window at the scenery and took a deep breath. _My dream is coming true, _she thought remembering her dream from two nights ago. It had been a never ending loop. She and Behnke pulled up on a back woods cabin and began their search. They found Mulder dead in a back bedroom, in the kitchen, in the woods outside of the cabin, and, in one instance floating in the lake. The memory of it chilled her to the bone. She shuddered at the thought of it.

"Isn't this the road to the state park?" she asked her partner as he wheeled the car around a bend.

"Yeah," Behnke replied. He drummed his fingers on the driver's side window. "The accident site is just up the road."

"Well, wasn't this area searched after the accident?"

"Yeah."

"Then why are we coming back here?"

Behnke was quiet for a second and then looked over at Scully. She was staring out the window. "Are you listening to yourself?" he asked her.

"What?"

"The area was searched on Sunday," he said with a "doi" tone to his voice.

"And?"

"Are you okay?" Behnke asked suddenly concerned with the mental state of his partner. "Do you need some coffee or something?"

"I'm fine," Scully answered, but not convincingly. She caught Behnke staring at her. "What?"

"Dana, Mulder was in Stower's apartment on Sunday … not out here during the search," he explained slowly.

"Sorry," Scully muttered under her breath realizing how her mindless babble had gotten her into trouble "My mind was on other things…"

"Like your dream from the other night?" He looked at her and smiled. "My mind is like a steel trap."

"Really?" Scully asked furrowing her eyebrows. "Considering that you couldn't remember Mulder's cover name, that's a scary thought."

"It wasn't that I didn't remember," he remarked over explaining himself. "I just didn't know he used it at work." He shrugged, trying to minimize her remark. He didn't mention the dream again and instead just changed the subject. "I'm hungry. When was the last time you ate anything? I'm going to stop at that gas station?"

"Yeah, just what I need," she scowled under her breath. "Fat-filled gas station food."

"Hey! Its better than nothing," he replied. "You need to feed your brain. When we find Mulder, he is probably going to need his doctor … which means you need to be sharp."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Twenty minutes later, after their meal break at the gas station, Behnke pulled his rental car into the driveway of 197N101 Smoky Hybrid Lane. The road was home to thirteen cabins of various sizes. The address led to a cabin set off the main road that backed up to the lake. It was the last house on the street. The quaint cabin was newly painted and looked like a vacation get-away that would be advertised in a travel magazine.

Scully stepped out of the car and paused before shutting the door. She stared at the cabin and scanned the woods surrounding it. "Not quite the way I pictured it," she muttered taking in the sights. It was relaxing and inviting…. Not the weathered rustic cabin from her dream.

"That's a good sign then," Behnke commented as he shut his car door. "The prophecy from your dream is not going to come through today." The crunching of tires on the gravel driveway behind him caused him to turn and watch Trooper Behnke and two deputies from the sheriff's department pull up.

"Whose house is this?" Scully asked. She walked around the front of the car and waited patiently for Trooper Miller walk over.

"Belongs to Kraft's boss at the retirement home," Miller stated as he stepped next to Behnke and Scully. "Kraft asked if she could stay here for a few days because her apartment was being painted."

"Creative excuse," Scully scoffed as she pulled her service revolver from its holster and checked the magazine clip. "Is there a ambulance on the way?"

"Yeah," Miller said looking back toward the road. "They're on stand-by at the end of the driveway."

"Let's check the house first," Behnke said calling the officers to action. "I'm a betting man today."

The five officers stormed the small cabin and cleared the rooms one by one. Behnke walked into the back bedroom first and stopped suddenly at the door.

"Dana!" he called to her as he fished a latex glove out of his pocket.

"Yeah?" she answered. She walked quickly down the hallway toward the room. Her heart was racing in anticipation of what he had found.

The room before her was in stark contrast to the closet at Stower's apartment or anything at Kraft's apartment. This room was decorated in blue and yellow with a hint of a romantic tone to it. The bed was a Victorian canopy and the furniture matched the period. The room appeared peaceful and relaxing. Scully looked around the room, taking everything in with a stunned expression on her face. _Not exactly what I was expecting, _she thought as her eyes finally settled on the bed. Mulder wasn't in it, but someone had been recently. Scully realized Behnke was standing over the sheets picking at evidence lying on the sheets.

"The bed's warm," he commented when he realized she had entered the room. "Have Miller and the deputies search the wood. He couldn't have gotten far."

"How do you…" Scully stammered as she stared at the blood stained sheets.

"Handcuffs, rope, broken bed frame?" Behnke rattled off as he looked up at her. "Normal people don't restrain themselves when they sleep." He stared at her and realized the contents of the room were paralyzing her. Behnke walked around the bed, hooked her arm and drug her out of the room. "Come on," he mumbled pulling her down the hall. "Let's all check the woods. I think you need some air anyway."

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: This chapter had to be reposted because it was so ... ahh... completely gag material. My roommates told me that I had practically ruined the story. So here is the new version.

Chapter 11

Sometime Wednesday night

"Agent Mulder!"

The words reverberated in his head like a broken record. He winced at the sound of it as a searing headache began to burn behind his eyes. _Yeah, that's my name alright! Go head say it a little louder, because I didn't quite hear you the first eighteen thousand times you said it before! _Mulder thought as he rolled restlessly on the bed. His mind began to wander aimlessly, the thoughts flooding his head in sensory overload.

_Agent Fox Mulder. In my life before the FBI I was Fox Mulder. Women thought my first name was hot. Fox. F-O-X. Sly fox. Smart as a Fox. Foxy. Fox Mulder. Then in a blink of an eye I adopted the title of Agent. Not just any ole Agent…Special Agent….specifically Special Agent Fox Mulder. Then Agent morphed from being my title to the name that everyone referred to me as Agent. It's the federal equivalent of "hey you" and I friggen answer to it. It's the "hey, I'm too lazy to really remember your name" …. The "I think I know you but I suck at names" … or the "I don't know you at all, but want to pretend I do" or even better "Your badge just blinded me and I'm star struck" stand in. _

_No one calls me Fox…. Well, my mother calls me Fox, but that's different. Skinner calls me Fox when he is really pissed at me … as if saying my first name is meaner than calling me Agent. Scully tried to call me Fox once and I shut her down quickly. Fox is personal and at the time I didn't want it personal with her … a lot of good that did….short of sleeping with the woman, Scully and I are everything personal. She's seen me naked for chriss sakes! That time in decontamination! Whew dog! She's got curves! Wow….yeah, yikes… knock it off Mulder …it was all legitimate. The woman is a medical doctor. _

_Sometimes …well, honestly most of the time, I wish it was more personal with her. Intimate. I just can't go there with her. It's not a good idea. Dating…er sleeping with a co-worker never works out. Fishing off the company pier so to speak…. Tried that already and look where it got me. That's probably why I didn't want Scully calling me Fox. Now it would just be too weird if she started calling me that. Kinda like it would be weird if Behnke and Stone called me Fox. They've been Benk and Stoney to me for years. I can't call them anything else. _

Mulder shifted his position on the bed and felt the resistance on his left wrist again. _Crap! _he cursed as he tried to move his left arm. _Did I friggen dream that whole escape from the bedroom? There is no way I'm still laying in that bed!!! It was so real. After what seemed like forever, I broke the slat in the headboard, found the sweatpants in the first dresser drawer I opened and then staggered into the yard barefoot. When I thought I heard a car coming, I half ran/half crawled into the tree line. _

_Is that a handcuff on my arm? No wait, that doesn't feel like a handcuff. It's more like a…a leather strap,_ Mulder thought as he tried to open his eyes and look down. His eyelids were heavy and as hard as he tried he couldn't open them.

_Am I blindfolded again? _he mused after another futile attempt to open his eyes. He began to tune in his other senses as he assessed his surroundings. _This isn't the same bed. It's harder and crinkles like a …. I hear beeps….I'm on oxygen again. I'm in a hospital, _he concluded feeling panic starting to set in. _But if I'm in a hospital why is my skin crawling? _Mulder jerked his arm against his restraint and began to thrashing around on the bed in another attempt to break free. He could feel hands touching his arms and legs and he began to scream loudly.

"Help me! Scully! Scully! Don't touch me! Let me go! Scully!"

"Agent Mulder!"

The ice cold liquid flooded his veins just as he heard his name called in the distance. His limbs became heavy and his control began to slip as he started to laugh uncontrollably. _Wow! _he thought to himself. _Yelling was so liberating! _As he drifted off to sleep, a parting conscious thought invaded his head. _Who the frick keeps saying my name?_


	12. Chapter 12

Thursday morning

Agent Behnke stepped off the elevator and headed toward the nurses station on the second floor of the hospital. He recognized Scully's red hair leaning over the desktop. _What is she doing? _he wondered as he walked up to the station. "She's sleeping," he muttered looking down at here. "How long?" he asked a nurse sitting next to his partner. He pointed down at Scully's head as he asked the question.

"At least an hour," she replied looking at her watch. "Before that she was sleeping in the chair in Agent Mulder's room."

"Hmm," Behnke replied nodding his head. "How is he?"

She picked up Mulder's chart and skimmed the notes before answering. "Better. We're still treating the dehydration. His blood pressure and heart rate are back to normal, and he is much calmer than he was last night," she said closing the file and sticking it back in its place in the chart rack.

"What about the…" Behnke's voice trailed off as he waved his hand in front of his chest.

The nurse looked at him and smirked. "Oh, the poison ivy?" she laughed quietly. "Well, he's still restrained but at this point it's just so he doesn't tear his skin off trying to relieve the irritation."

Behnke winced at the mental imagery. "Can't you do something for that? Like dip him in a flea bath or something?"

"That's a creative idea," the nurse replied still laughing. "I'll discuss that with his doctor later." A call light at the desk caught her attention and she hurried down the corridor to check on another patient.

Behnke walked around the station and set the bag he was carrying on the desktop. "Dana," he whispered into Scully's ear and shook her shoulder slightly.

"Huh?" she moaned lifting her head up from the desk.

"It's morning," he said sitting down in the chair recently vacated by the nurse.

"Geezus," she mumbled rubbing her eye. "I just closed my eyes for a second. What time is it?"

"Nine. I brought you breakfast," he replied opening the bag. He handed her a cup of fruit, yogurt and a small bottle of juice.

"No coffee?" she asked as she scanned the menu choices.

"No, I decided after my conversation with Skinner this morning that we needed to start eating better," Behnke replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Scully asked him with a perplexed expression on her face. "What did Skinner say?"

"We're going to be partnered until Mulder gets back to work," he replied matter-of-factly.

"That might be next week," Scully replied as she stuck a piece of fruit in her mouth.

"Doubtful," Behnke replied firmly. "You know he has to pass the psych screen before he is released to come back and no shrink is going to clear him for next week after what happened to him." Behnke shrugged and popped the lid on his orange juice and took a drink. As he set the bottle down he noticed Scully's right hand was bandaged. "What happened to your hand?" he asked.

Scully stopped eating the fruit for a second and looked down at the bandage. "Umm, it's nothing," she replied trying to minimize it.

"Doesn't look like just nothing," Behnke said. He took another swallow of orange juice. "Nothing would be like … ah a band aid. So what happened?"

Scully rolled her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips. "Mulder … bit me," she replied reluctantly.

"He bit you?" Behnke asked in awe. That was the last thing he expected her to say, however considering Mulder's mental state when they found him, it didn't surprise him.

"Yeah," Scully said trying to act like it wasn't a big deal. "He woke up last night and was disoriented and when I was trying to calm him down he …" her voice trailed off and she looked away from Behnke so he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes.

Behnke caught sight of them anyway. _Let's just change the subject. _"Hmmm hmmm," he mumbled thoughtfully. "You know...in Klingon society biting is the way the male marks his territory," he remarked. When she looked back at him her arched his eyebrows and winked at her.

"Klingons?"

"Yeah, you know, Star Trek, Jean-Luc Picard, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spo-…."

"I know what star trek is!" she interrupted him. She shook her head and started laughing. "I highly doubt Mulder bit me in some Klingon mating ritual….he was delusional." She rubbed her lip just under her nose with her index finger and took a breath. "It's not like that between us," she added feeling the need to over-explain. "We're just friends."

"Oh, really?" Behnke mumbled looking under the desk for a waste basket. "So then you wouldn't be opposed to my asking you out?" When she didn't respond he looked up at her and noticed a startled expression on her face. "You don't have a policy about dating co-workers do you?"

Scully blushed and busied herself with opening the yogurt. "Ahh no." She stuck a spoonful in her mouth and arched her eyebrows at him.

_No what? No you're not ruling it out or no, you don't date co-workers?? _Behnke thought as he smiled at her. "So do you think Mulder's awake?" he asked trying to change the subject.

Scully stared at the yogurt cup as if it was the most interesting piece of plastic in the world. "Hmmmm, maybe….. are you going to talk to him?"

_Well, doi! _Behnke thought as he started to laugh. "No, actually. I have no intention on talking to him … what was that about?" he stared at Scully and watched her blush.

"I don't know," she laughed sheepishly. "I think its sleep deprivation. You want me to go with you? He might be calmer."

Behnke leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. "You think that he'll freak out?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"I'm not going in to interrogate him Dana," he retorted. "Just ask a few questions and see what he remembers."

"He might not remember anything," Scully argued tossing the yogurt cup in the trash.

Behnke hesitated before responding and stared at the floor. _She's doing it again, _he thought formulating his response. "We're not going to have this discussion again are we?"

"What discussion would that be?"

"The one where I have to remind you that your role on this case is that of an investigator and not …." His voice trailed off and he bit his lip.

"What?" Scully asked him getting ticked off. "Not what?"

Behnke smirked and shook his head. "Of a wife."

Scully coughed and stared at Behnke wide eyed. "I am not acting like Mulder's wife."

"Yes you are…. you're protecting him."

"I am not, I'm merely saying that he… might not remember anything," she replied defensively.

"Yeah, protecting him," Behnke smarted back and stood up from the chair. "It's not like I'm the big bad wolf." He walked around the end of the nurse's station. "That's Mulder's tag line. Fox … F-O-X … sly fox," he started laughing at his own joke and started to walk towards Mulder's room. "You coming?" he looked about at her and waved for her to join him.

"Sly Fox?" Scully muttered under her breath as she jogged catch him in the hall. "I see you're full of yourself this morning."

"Better to eat you with my dear," Behnke replied as he slowed in front of Mulder's door.

"Oh brother," Scully mumbled rolling her eyes. "Good thing I wore heels today, the crap is getting deep."

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Thursday morning

Mulder pulled nervously against the wrist and leg restraints as he stared up at the ceiling and IV bag hanging above him. He leaned over and tried to bit at the tubing in a desperate attempt to pull it from his arm. Whatever _they _were pumping into his body was continuing the endless out of control feeling he had been plagued with since the car accident. His skin tingled and the urge to rake his fingernails across his chest was overwhelming. He was agitated and the bleeps of the monitoring equipment that surrounded him were wearing on his already thin nerves.

Voices from the corridor startled him and he eyed the doorway suspiciously. His instincts were conflicted. He wanted to bask in the comfort of his hospital room, but his recent experiences had forced him to be cautious. He continued to bite at the tubing and was oblivious to the door as it swung open.

"Hey! Whoa! Mulder, if you are hungry, call the nurse," Behnke called out to him as he walked through the door. "I'm sure lime jello would taste better than that plastic tubing."

Mulder lay back against the pillow and closed his eyes. _Behnke, _he thought as he listened to the familiar voice. _Is he really there or is my mind playing tricks on me? _Mulder opened his eyes and looked at the man in front of him. _Looks like a real person, _he mused without responding.

"Mulder?" Behnke said again when his friend didn't answer. He moved the IV stand away from the bed and draped the tubing out of Mulder's reach. "How're ya feeling?" he asked.

Mulder watched him warily. "Compared to what?" he croaked out. His voice was barely audible in his own ear and he wondered if he made any sound at all. As he watched Behnke's reaction he decided something must have squeaked out from his lips.

"Ya want some water?" Behnke mumbled and scanned the room for a pitcher of water finding it on the lunch tray behind him. Behnke walked over to the table and poured water into a cup and then stuck a straw into it. He walked back to Mulder's bed with the cup in his hand. Behnke hesitated before putting the straw to Mulder's lips. "Don't forget that I'm armed," he chuckled as he leaned closer to the bed. "If you bite me, I'll shoot you."

Mulder smiled thinly as he sealed his lips around the straw and let the cold liquid flood his mouth and slide down his throat. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was until he swallowed a couple of gulps. He took a breath and another swallow of the beverage. He relaxed slightly as he detected the familiar aroma of Behnke's aftershave. "Thanks," he mumbled and ran his tongue over his lips. "Can ya do anything about these restraints?" he asked trying to pull his arm up to his lips. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Ah, no, sorry bud," Behnke said putting the cup on the nightstand. "Mulder, no one is forcing you to stay here… well, unless you count Dana … I'm sure she would have an opinion about your leaving the hospital," Behnke chuckled and walked around the bed to the chair that Scully have slept in most of the night. "The restraints are for your own protection, Einstein. You're one that "hid" in the poison ivy patch. Haven't you heard that ole saying… _leaves of three let them be_?"

"Leaves of three," Mulder muttered as the memory of his escape flooded his mind. He had left the house shirtless and _hid_ in under the brush when he thought that woman was chasing him. _That woman was probably Scully, _he contemplated as he remembered hearing voices calling his name. "Scully," he mumbled aloud.

"Huh?"

Behnke's voice drew him from his thoughts. _He must think I'm losing it, _Mulder thought swallowing hard and squeezing his eyes shut. _Maybe I am losing it, I mean, I feel like crap so, maybe that is how ya feel when you lose your mind. ._ Mulder opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. "Scully, is she here?"

"Yah, she went to put on some scrubs," Behnke replied calmly. _Man is he out of it, _he thought as he watched Mulder struggle to grasp what had happened. "She's going to help the nurse put you in the shower. You need it …among other things, you stink."

"Thanks a lot," Mulder replied with a sheepish grin. "I'll remember that the next time I have to save your ass."

"Yeah, well, speaking of saving your ass," Behnke remarked leaning forward in the chair. "Remember anything?"

"Some," Mulder replied quietly. "Some details are seared into my memory and others are a little foggy."

Behnke nodded. "I ah…." Behnke stammered and looked down at the floor. "I'm going to need a statement at some point." He looked up and caught Mulder's gaze with his eyes. "When you are ready."

"When I have this all put together," Mulder began. "I still can't shake the feeling that I'm dreaming all of this."

"That's the antihistamines in your system Mulder," Scully answered as she walked in from the corridor. "It's making you drowsy. A hot shower should wake you right up." She made her way to the bed rail and stared down at her wounded partner.

Mulder turned his head to the sound of her voice and gazed into her eyes. "Scully," he mumbled seeing her for the first time in what seemed like weeks. "I missed you."

"Oh, brother …" Behnke muttered pushing himself off the chair. "The shits getting deep in here." He stood up and walked over to the door. Turning back toward the bed, he caught a glimpse of the lost puppy dog look in Mulder's face. _Yeah, he's whipped, _Benk thought shaking his head. He cleared his throat before saying anything else. "I'll check back later this afternoon and Dana," he paused, waiting for her to turn around. "You have my permission to shoot him if he gets rambunctious again."

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"Feel better?" Scully asked her partner walking back into his room wearing her street clothes. Mulder was sitting up in the bed eating a hearty lunch of chicken broth, toast and orange jello. His right arm was newly casted, and his arms and legs were free of the restraints for the first time in days. Scully noticed his hair was still tousled from the shower and pulled a comb out of her purse and walked over to his bedside.

"Better than dead, I guess," he mumbled pushing the tray away from his chest. "The mere fact that I can sit up and don't feel doped up anymore is a plus."

"You're still medicated," she started fingering the IV tubing. "But for the legitimate reasons now."

"Not for psycho females stuck in a B flick sex fantasy?" Mulder joked with her. "I hope she didn't video tape my performance." He laid his head back against the pillow and glanced over at Scully. She wasn't amused and even had a tear in her eye. "You're not going to get all mushy on me now are you?"

"No," Scully answered looking up at the light and blinking away her tears. "It's just been a tough week."

Mulder reached his hand out and brushed her fingertips. "Yeah, well, working with Behnke all week sure couldn't have been a picnic." He watched her facial expression turn from sorrow to a smile.

"Yeah, he's a piece of work," Scully muttered with a smirk on her face. _He asked me out! _she thought to herself. _Was he serious or …._

"A fine piece of china I'd say!" Behnke's voice echoed from the hall. Scully turned to watch him walk through the door and felt butterflies in her stomach. Behnke walked to her side and stopped at the bed rail. "You aren't interviewing our victim without me are you?" he asked Scully winking at her.

"No, never," Mulder replied shaking his head. "She was just running her fingers through my hair. Notice how messy it is?"

Scully scowled at both of her partners and shook her head in disgust. She flicked the comb at Mulder and walked around the bed to the empty chair and sat down.

"Glad to see you in a more coherent state pal," Behnke remarked sticking his hand out. "Oh, is it safe to shake your hand right? I mean the poison ivy juice is gone right? " he asked over at Scully for confirmation.

"Oil," she replied sarcastically. "Watch out for his mouth, he might bit you and you wouldn't want to be marked as his mate."

Behnke grimaced and chuckled back at her leaving Mulder's eyes darting between the two agents in bewilderment. _What was that about? _Behnke didn't give him much time to think about it.

"Is your memory any better?"

"Sort of," Mulder replied shifting his weight on the bed. "Where do you want me to start?"

"The hotel staff said you checked out about 8 pm Saturday night. Why don't you pick it up from there?" Behnke said as he walked around the bed.

Mulder began to ramble about the details of the ride, the accident and the initial part of his abduction in the background while Behnke nudged Scully to get out of the chair. After a quick exchange of looks, Scully relented and gave up the seat to him. She made a mental note that his hand lingered across the small of her back as she stood up and moved over to the end of Mulder's bed. Behnke moved the chair over to get closer to the bed and his knee rubbed against her leg. She didn't budge and once he was settled in his seat, they were still making bodily contact, leg to knee. While it seemed like Behnke was preoccupied with Scully while Mulder talked he didn't miss a beat and when Mulder paused, then asked about Julia he jumped right in with his answer.

"She's dead," Behnke said solemnly.

"From her injuries?" Mulder asked absent-mindly despite that he knew better.

"No," Behnke volunteered to see if Mulder could fill in the blanks. After a moment of silence Scully filled in the blanks.

"She was murdered by an over-dose of a tranquilizer," Scully said matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry Mulder."

He bit his lip and looked down at the sheets. "She was a …. ah really beautiful person," he mumbled contemplating her death. "Was she killed by my abductors?"

"There's evidence linking them," Scully began.

"But neither will admit to it," Behnke said finishing her sentence.

Mulder looked up at both and darted his eyes between to the two. _He's finishing her sentences and …and they are sitting a little too close to each other, _he mused watching them carefully. _Exactly how long have I been missing?_ Memories of his partnership with Scully and the closeness they had shared flooded his conscious and snapshots of Julia intermittedly filtered in to confuse his train of thought and interfere with his focus.

"Mulder?"

"Mulder are you alright?"

Mulder sighed and closed his eyes drawing his focus back to the room. _Man, has it been a strange couple of days, _he thought as more memories flashed in his mind. He heard Scully's voice call to him. He felt her fingers wrap around his hand and felt her warmth radiate from the bond. He opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

"Yeah, ah ….sorry," Mulder mumbled. "I'm not quite feeling like myself."

Behnke got up from the chair and put his hand on Scully's shoulder. "Get some rest, bud," he said nudging Scully to leave. "We'll try this again later." He started around the bed and realized Scully wasn't following him. "Dana?" he called to her. When she looked at him he shot her a glare that silently said _get out of here! _

Mulder watched the exchange between the two as they left the room. _They're rather cozy, _he thought quietly suddenly feeling left out of the party.

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"He's not doing too well," Behnke commented as soon as he and Scully were in the corridor. "He still out of it."

"It's not unusual, considering his injuries, the residual drugs in his system and the treatment he is receiving for the poison ivy," Scully replied. "I'd give him another twenty four hours."

"We don't have twenty four hours Dana," Behnke remarked leaning against the wall. "Skinner made it very clear on the phone, we need to get Mulder's statement today. The Philadelphia Division office is taking over the case tomorrow morning." He pushed himself off the wall, stepped closer to her and lowered his voice. "If you were raped, who would your rather tell…me or some cocky FBI agent that is trying to make a name for himself?"

His words stung her senses and she took a step back from him. They needed to break through his fog and soon. "Then let me do it," she stammered. "I can get his statement."

"Dana," Behnke started to protest worried that her emotions would get in the way again.

"Derrick I can do this," she countered quickly putting her hand on his arm. "He trusts me like no one else."

Behnke hesitated a moment and held her gaze with his eyes. "You can get it… without getting emotional?"

"Yes."

"I'm holding you to that Agent," Behnke replied sternly.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

A/N Sorry! Life got in the way of my fantasy world again. Thanks for all the reviews! As most of our stories, my tale took a twist that I wasn't expecting. I aplogize for any typos.

Chapter 14

Agent Scully's face was illuminated by the computer screen in front of her on the desk at the Sheriff's office. The room was a flurry of activity but the only sound she was focused on was the rhythmic cadence of her fingers on the keyboard. The stern expression on her face told passerby's that she was drawn into the story that was unraveling on the screen. She was oblivious to anything but the "movie" that was playing in her mind.

Her firm focus on the computer allowed Agent Derrick Behnke to walk behind her and around her desk a couple of times. He even had a one-sided conversation with her until he realized she wasn't listening. Finally he picked up his interrogation notes and the case file and quietly stepped back from the desk. He stood next to her admiring the view in silence for a few moments. He savored the serene presence about her and then chuckled to himself as he slammed the file down on the desk. Her reaction was priceless.

"Geezus Christ!" she screamed nearly jumping out of her skin. She turned to find Agent Behnke nearly doubled over in laughter at her expense. "You ass!"

Behnke continued to laugh for several minutes while Scully scowled at him. "I'm sorry Dana," he finally choked out. "I couldn't resist." He leaned against the desk and cleared his throat. "So much for your FBI training Agent Scully."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Scully stuttered still feeling her pulse in her throat. "I was working…typing Mulder's statement," she over-explained gesturing at the computer screen.

"I was talking about your heightened sense of awareness or lack there of," Behnke said moving around the desk and turning on the computer. "I walked into the room, set my notes on the desk, walked over to the coffee pot and attempted to have a conversation with you ….none of which you even noticed." Behnke commented as he sat down in the chair.

Scully slumped back in her chair. "It was noisy in here," she conceded.

"It was noisy?" Behnke laughed. "I hope you aren't my backup in a stakeout." He started typing on the keyboard and then stopped flipping open the case file. "You're working on his statement huh? How'd that go?"

Scully sighed and pushed back from the desk. She stood and walked to the coffee pot. "He doesn't remember much," she commented as she poured a fresh cup.

"Is that your objective summation Agent?" Behnke asked from behind his computer. He leaned forward to see her around the computer monitor. "Just asking."

Scully flashed him the _death_ scowl and walked back to her desk. She pulled the chair out and sat down facing his desk. "He remembers very little about being in Stower's apartment. Woke up and found himself tied to a cot, which by the way he described in detail, managed to get free and then had a botched escape attempt."

"Hmm, that's pretty cut and dried," Behnke commented inclining his head to the side. "That's the way he told it to you?"

"No," Scully remarked ruefully. "That's just the basic details. What little he remembers corroborates the evidence."

Behnke nodded and took a sip of his coffee. "Do you think he could pick Stower out of a line up?"

"Ahh, I don't know," Scully replied biting her lip. "Some of the details are pretty clear … the description of the cot, the dentist office loopiness, the pocket knife, and attacking his abductor … I don't think he got a good look at him. He said he punched him, stabbed him with the knife and dashed into the hallway where he blacked out."

"I think we should still try a photo line up," Behnke said as he moved some papers around on the desk. "What about the cabin?" He looked over at his partner and watched her facial expressions as she struggled to be impartial.

"When he woke up at the cabin, he thought he was there with Julia at first," Scully paused and took a drink of her coffee.

"Kraft does kinda resemble Julia," Behnke commented. "Although Julia was much more personable." He caught Scully glaring at him again. "She worked at the coffee shop down from the office," he explained sheepishly suddenly feeling like he was explaining himself to his girlfriend. "I drink a lot of coffee."

"Ah huh," Scully said mildly amused that he was getting defensive. "He said he fought her at first, but she was drugging him and it made him weak," Scully said taking another sip of her coffee. "In the end he just let her _do it _because it was easier..." Her voice trailed off and there was a moment of awkward silence between them.

Behnke contemplated the account. _That calculated bitch prayed on every man's sexual fantasy, _he thought to himself as he drummed his fingers on the desk top. He took a sip of the coffee and tried to calm his nerves. There wasn't a word to describe his emotion and he could only imagine what Scully was feeling let alone how Mulder was holding it together.

The silence between them was deafening despite the activity in the room. He cleared his throat. "That's a typical response Dana," Behnke finally blurted out. "It's instinct to fight and defend oneself but at some point the need for survival takes over. It's not like he was in a position to fight back or could overpower Kraft. He was restrained and medicated….sounds like he made the best decision considering the situation."

"Well, it doesn't make it any better," Scully mumbled ruefully and slumped in her chair.

"I'm not saying that, Dana," Behnke remarked turning his focus back to the computer. "I'm just saying that it's _understandable _for the victim to choose the path of least resistance_." _

"Victim? That's a clinical way to describe your friend," Scully retorted defensively.

"Dana, how many more times am I going to have to remind you that we aren't working this case because Mulder is our friend or partner. We are working a capital abduction and sexual assault case where the victim just happens to be our friend and partner," Behnke fired back at her. He sighed in irritation and stared determinedly at his computer screen.

The words stabbed Scully in the chest and she said nothing in response. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Behnke was right. Just when she thought she was being objective and treating this like any other case, she slipped and let her emotions get into it. Her mother had told her that Mulder was the same way during her abduction. He kept his objectivity and his optimistic attitude until the day she appeared in the hospital … then he was an emotional wreck. She berated herself for losing control and turned back to the solitude of her computer screen.

Silence fell between them for several minutes as they both banged out statements on their keyboard. Finally closed her file and walked to the printer to pick up the copies. On her way back to her desk, she walked behind Behnke and read his screen over her shoulder. After mumbling a paragraph to herself she picked up some pages of Stower's statement from the desk and skimmed the paper.

"Looks like _he said- she said_," she remarked leaning on the side of his desk.

"Oh yeah, the two of them are a wealth of information," Behnke scowled saving the file to disk and pushing back from the keyboard. "Thank god the Phillie office is taking over the case. I've about had it trying to piece-mill this thing together."

"Maybe I should talk to Kraft," Scully suggested without looking at him.

"You? Because you were so helpful in our last joint interrogation?" Behnke chuckled shaking his head.

"We found Mulder didn't we?"

Behnke leaned back in his chair. "No Trooper Miller found Mulder. You…. You just managed to piss Miss Kraft off." Behnke stated looking up at her.

"I pissed her off?" Scully questioned him. "Don't get me started about who is pissing whom off."

Behnke smiled smugly and picked up his notes. "Its kinda a funny actually to watch. Ah, here it is … her exact quote to me this morning was…Don't let that r_ed haired bitch _near me again."

Scully glared at her partner as he laughed. _Oh, you're just too full of yourself, _she thought biting her lip. "Where is she now?"

"Back in her cell," Behnke mumbled tossing the file back on the desk. He caught Scully walking around the desk toward the door. "Where are you going?"

"To have a lil'chat with Miss Kraft," Scully replied dryly. She caught his eye and winked. "Are you coming?"

Behnke scrambled up from his desk and grabbed his notes. "If you think I'm letting you go in there alone, you're crazy."

Scully picked up a note pad and started down the hall. "Who are you worried about? Her or me?"

"Honestly? Both of you!"

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Leslie Kraft rolled over on her cot and stared blankly at the floor of her cell. Her eyes darted from the stainless steel toilet to the sink to the barred opening at the end of the small room. The musty odor from the paper thin mattress filled her nostrils and she turned her head upward for fresher air. _I'm screwed, _she thought changing her view to the cement ceiling. _How the frick did I know the guy was an FBI agent? _She covered her eyes with her forearm trying to hide her frustration and attempted to block out her thoughts by drifting off to sleep.

The clang of the main cell door slamming shut jolted her body and she cursed under her breath at her jumpiness. _Need to get used to that, _she thought as she shifted her weight on the mattress. She listened carefully as the footsteps echoed on the cement as they walked closer to her door and then stopped.

"Kraft! Get up!" the female voice of the guard bellowed through the bars.

Leslie sighed heavily before responding. "Why?" she grumbled. _Geezus, can't a person lay around in silence once in a while? Get up, go here, do this, go back … crickey! _

"You're not entitled to know why … just get your butt up!"

Kraft rolled over and pushed herself into a sitting position. "Come on, just humor me a little," she plastered a fake smile on her face and looked at the guard.

"Agent Behnke wants to talk to you," the woman replied flatly.

"Wha?" she gasped dropping her head. "How many more times do I have to talk to the guy? I spent four hours with'em already!" She stood from the bed and walked toward the cell door.

"You'll talk to him as many times as he wants until you give him the correct answers," the guard replied waving at the security camera to signal that she was ready for the door to be buzzed open.

Kraft stood motionless as the guard fastened the arm and leg shackles to wrists and ankles and then shuffled silently next to the woman as she was led down the hall to the interrogation room. She glanced sideways at the other cells and considered her fellow inmates plight as she passed. _Crap! You clutz! _she cursed as she attempted to take a bigger step than the chain connecting her ankles would allow. _Friggen handcuffs! What a drag! _After a few more moments of trudging down the corridor Kraft and the guard arrived at the door to the interrogation room. The guard opened the door and led Kraft into the room.

Leslie glanced into the room as she passed through the doorway. Agent Behnke was leaning again the table in the middle of the room was his arm crossed at his chest. He had a strange grim on his face and she looked at him with a perplexed expression on her face. Kraft was startled and jumped as the guard slammed the door behind her.

"Well, Ms Kraft, why don't you have a seat," remarked a female voice from behind Kraft.

The voice caught Leslie off guard and she spun on her heel to face it. She sucked in air as she felt the color drain from her face and heard sinister laughter echoing off the walls.

_Frick! _Kraft thought as she back peddled toward the table. _It's the red-haired bitch!!!! _

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Exactly what I didn't want to happen -- happened when I attempted to write these last few chapters and ughhh … so very very frustrating. I tried to wrap this story up in a fashion that everyone would like. In any event … thank you to all who reviewed this story and put up with me while I told my tale. My original characters will live again in another story.

Chapter 15

Mulder stirred in his sleep, legs and arms twitching involuntarily as visions of the last few days flooded his dreams. In his mind he was reliving the nightmare of his capture. He eyed the vixen cautiously as she entered the room from the hallway and strutted her way to his bed. She was dressed in street clothes, her brown hair flowing loosely over her shoulders. She crawled onto the mattress and straddled his torso as she slinked closer to his organ. His body began to tense as he felt the heat of her skin against him.

"Mulder."

He recoiled from the voice and jerked his entire body to the opposite side of the bed. He could feel his heart beat pounding in his head as he looked in the direction of the voice and was comforted slightly by the sight of his friend and colleague.

"Ah, hi," Mulder replied relaxing back against the mattress.

"Lil'jumpy there pal?" Behnke remarked completely aware of his friend's reaction. He leaned against the bed rail, resting his elbows on it.

"Considering what I've been through," Mulder mumbled. "You'd be jumpy too." He pulled at the sheet and shifted his legs on the bed.

"Yah, ummm how're you feeling?" Behnke asked walking around the end of the bed.

"Like crap," Mulder replied. "I guess it could be worse."

"I'll say, you could still be in that cabin or worse," Behnke replied sitting down on the chair by the bed. "Dead."

Mulder swallowed hard as he considered the consequences. "How did you find me anyway?"

"Hot dog police work mostly," Behnke replied smugly. "Guess that profiling crap you tried to teach me sunk in. I wrote a profile on a psycho sex freak and Kraft just worked her way right into it."

"Hot dogs and profiles," Mulder laughed. "Scully buy into that line of bull?"

"Barely …. Her emotions were blocking her vision."

"What?" Mulder asked suddenly alarmed. "That's not like her."

"Well, maybe Scully in her normal state. But ya gotta admit she's been through a lot in the past few months. Her dad, her sister and then the prospect of losing you. It was freaking her out."

"So Skinner assigned you to assist her in finding me?"

"No, Skinner assigned me to find you. Scully came along for the ride because the county medical examiner was also killed in the car accident," Behnke answered flatly. "Not that she wouldn't have shown up anyway," he added ruefully. "To be completely honest, she picked up on the one clue that busted open Kraft's story."

"What?"

"George Hale."

The name struck a nerve with Mulder as he remembered how he used to alias to contact Scully in the past. "George Hale" he repeated slowly. "I'm not following."

"Kraft told us that her boyfriend's name was George Hale."

"That wench has a boyfriend?" Mulder asked quizzically. He silently pondered the notion as he thought about the guy he decked in the face.

"Yeah… you."

"Huh?"

"George Hale? Your code name," Behnke replied trying to get Mulder to read between the lines. The puzzled expression on Mulder's face gave way to the truth about George Hale. "You didn't tell her that your name was George Hale?"

Mulder bit his lip and shook his head. "No. I don't remember that I even talked to the woman. Not that she gave me many opportunities too. My mouth was covered with tape most of the time," Mulder replied running his hand across his lip. "Unless I told her when I was doped up."

"Yah, well, that's not why I came over here anyway," Behnke said sitting back against the chair. "I needed to get out of the station house. The walls were starting to smother me."

The comment drew a chuckle from Mulder. "You? What about Scully? You two seem to be attached at the hip these days."

"Well, that's actually why I needed to leave," Behnke replied standing up from the chair. "Scully is interviewing Ms. Kraft."

"And?"

"She's a little territorial about you," Behnke replied matter-a-factly. "She practically beat the crap out of Kraft before we found you, so I can almost imagine what she is doing to her now."

"And you left her alone with the suspect?" Mulder shot him a look that could kill.

"She's not completely alone," Behnke replied shrugging his shoulders. "The deputies and the state patrol are there."

"That's comforting," Mulder mumbled lying back against his pillow. "Wait a minute, if she's only here to do the autopsies then why is she interviewing the suspect?"

"There are just a couple of details that need to be cleared up," Behnke said.

"What kind of details?"

"Details that I can't discuss with you," Behnke countered remembering that Mulder was the victim and not another investigator.

"Come on Benk." Mulder protested.

"No way! You're the victim. Hey, you wanna play some cards?" Behnke said fishing a deck out of his coat pocket and flashing them at his friend.

Mulder shook his head with a disgusted expression on his face. "My shrink tell you to do that … distract me?"

"No!" Behnke said pulling the table closer to the bed. "That little _Skinner_ voice in my head was echoing in my ear."

"Skinner…great!" Mulder moaned. "He must think I'm pathetic."

"I wouldn't say that … besides, I've thought that about you for years," Behnke joked sitting down on the side of the bed.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Sort of," Behnke laughed. "I get it now why you could never score out at the bar." He shuffled the cards in his hand. "With women," he added as he dealt Mulder a hand.

"I hold my own at the bar," Mulder argued looking at his hand.

"Yeah, right," Behnke rolled his eyes. "It's me you're talking too … not Stone or Skinner or Manders…you're in love with her."

Mulder shook his head. "I'm not in love with Scully," he guffawed. "I respect her and she's my closest friend, next to you."

"Ummhmmm, right…its okay Mulder. I'm not jealous. I can see why you fell for her. Since working this case, I see her differently," Behnke said dumping a card on the table. "She's worth falling for."

"You falling for my girl?" Mulder asked him looking at his friend over the top of his cards.

"Oh, now she's your girl? Just a second ago she was just your friend," Behnke replied with a laugh.

"I plead the fifth," Mulder replied with a smirk on his face. He laid his cards on the table and laughed. "Gin."

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"Agent Scully?"

Scully looked up from her computer monitor and stared blankly at the man in front of her before realizing it was Trooper Miller.

"Agent?" the state patrol officer repeated. "Are you okay?"

"Ah yeah," Scully replied. She took her glasses off and ran her hand across her brow. "I was just finishing up Kraft's statement."

"My wife made you a snack," Trooper Miller said handing her a plastic container of food. He pulled up a chair and sat down near the desk. "I got the court order for the medical tests and the date-rape cocktail," he said taking his coat off. "A sheriff's deputy is taking her over to the hospital right now."

"Thank you, to you and your wife," Scully replied picking up the sandwich and taking a bite. "That's one less thing Mulder has to worry about."

"Did she … ahh.. confess to anything?"

"More or less," Scully remarked and took a drink of her soda. "She's admitted that she held him against his will, drugged him and sexually assaulted him multiple times. She claims she knows nothing about Julia's murder or what Stower did with Mulder while he was at the apartment."

"Motive?"

"She said she was doing it because she wanted to get pregnant," Scully replied with a scowl on her face.

"That's it?" Trooper Miller exclaimed. "Shoot, if that is all she wanted she could have slept with Stower or half a dozen other guys in town."

"Well, I asked her about that and she said that she thought Stower was ugly," Scully chuckled.

"Ugly?" Trooper Miller blurted out. "I don't think that word quite describes him ma'm."

"There isn't any words that describe him Trooper Miller," Scully smiled taking another bite of the sandwich. "Sadistic, pervert, and murderer don't even cover it."

Miller picked up the federal complaint lying on the desk and skimmed the document quickly. "Well, I'm sure some federal judge will figure out what to label him."

"Then he and his partner in crime can sit in prison for the next twenty years defining it," Scully replied sarcastically.

"Oh, Agent Scully do I detect a hint of vindictiveness in your voice?"

Scully shook her head and a sly grin crawled across her face. "Now why would I be vindictive? Let's see … the two of them are involved in the abduction and imprisonment of my partner, his physical and sexual assault for three days, the murder of his traveling companion _and_ a burglary of their employer…. What's that? Five, six felony counts?" Scully took another sip of her soda. "But who's counting?"

"Not me, Agent … you had me in your corner when you got here Monday night_," _Trooper Miller laughed.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scully stood in the doorway of Mulder's hospital room and watched his fitful sleep. After a few minutes she walked to his bedside and turned the TV down as it droned on in the background. Absent-mindedly she reached down and began to lace her fingers around his when he jerked his hand back away from her and retreated to the far side of the bed. The quick movement startled her. Her breath caught in her throat and she stepped back from the bed. Scully watched Mulder eye her suspiciously, his eyes filled with fear and the slowly soften as he recognized her.

"Scully," he muttered as he shifted his weight back to the center of the bed. "Sorry, I was …ah … dreaming."

"No, its my fault Mulder," she apologized. Her face flushed and she felt sick to her stomach, silently chiding herself for being so careless around him. He had been physically and sexually assaulted, so touching him so casually wasn't very smart. _Never mind that I've always felt comforted by his touch, _she mused. _Things aren't going to be the same between us anymore_. She busied herself by pushing the bedrail down and sat on the mattress next to him. "I forgot. I'm sorry."

Mulder took her hand and squeezed it. "Hmm, I wish I could forget. It seems every time I close my eyes, I'm in that room with her again." He looked up at the IV bag hanging next to the bed. "And this IV tube stuck in me isn't helping.

"Mulder, the memory will fade at some point and the nightmares will go away," Scully remarked in her clinical voice. "It's just going to take time."

"Logically I know that Scully," he replied. "I'm a psychologist remember?" he closed his eyes and ran his hand down the bridge of his nose. "Got any sunflower seeds?" he asked looking up at her.

_Always looking for a distraction, _Scully mused pulling a bag of his favorite snack out of her coat pocket. "How much is it worth to you?"

"Well, G-woman," he replied with a sly grin on his face. "What are you offering?"

Scully ran her tongue over her lips and locked her eyes on his. "A shoulder to cry on or a friend that will listen," she replied handing him the bag.

Mulder chuckled and took the bag from her hand. "I'll be okay Scully. You're free to go out with Behnke and not be worried that I'm at home contemplating suicide."

"Mulder!" Scully exclaimed with a stunned expression on her face. "I'm not going on a date with Behnke!" she stammered. "I don't even like him!"

"Really?" Mulder quizzed her. "That's not how it appeared earlier when you were here."

"Well, I don't hate him," Scully replied defensively. Her face flushed red hot. "He's actually rather likeable. I just don't plan on dating him."

Mulder started to laugh at her remark. "Funny, that's exactly how he described you earlier," he said.

"What?" Scully gasped. _They were talking about me? Okay, why does that surprise me! _"What did he say?"

"Oh, no, that's guy talk," Mulder remarked attempting to backpedal.

"Mulder," Scully said sternly. "Tell me."

"He just said that he understood why I found you so …," Mulder started.

"Likeable?" Scully finished the sentence for him, feeling slightly relieved that Behnke hadn't said anything more.

"Yeah, something like that," Mulder said sticking another sunflower seed in his mouth. "When do you plan on busting me out of here?"

Scully tilted her head to the side and looked at him quizzically. "I have to talk to your doctor first," she began before he cut her off.

"Scully, I hate doctors … present company excluded of course," Mulder whined. "Please can't we just go home?"

Scully rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Mulder, if you would listen without interrupting, I have to talk to your doctor about your release because Skinner wants us back in D.C. tomorrow," she explained flatly. "You'll be transferred to Bethesda."

"Where FBI shrinks can examine me and try to convince me that I'm nuts?" Mulder guffawed. "Scully, can't you just take care of that for me?"

"Sure, Mulder, I already think you are nuts," Scully replied with a smirk. "I have the wounds to prove it."

"What wounds?" He eyed her as she waved her hand in front of his face. "What happened to your hand?"

"You don't remember?" Scully asked and watched him shake his head. "You bit me."

"I bit you?"

"Yeah, yesterday after we found you," she mumbled over explaining. "I was trying to calm you down when you were delusional."

"And I bit you," Mulder repeated.

"Occupational hazard, Mulder," Scully replied trying to minimize the incident.

"Or a Klingon mating ritual," Mulder shot back at her.

Scully started to laugh at the reference. _There's that star trek thing again. _"Behnke said that too. He said you were marking your territory."

"Maybe I was," Mulder replied winking at her.

"I would believe that if you hadn't bit your IV line and ripped the tubing out, bit the sheets of the bed and tried to bite the three male staff members that tried to hold you down."

"Well, I had to make it look good," Mulder joked. He looked into her eyes and caught a sorrowful expression within them. "Hey Scully," he said softly lacing his fingers tightly around hers. "I knew you would find me. And despite that I bit you, I always knew you were in the room. I could smell your perfume and I felt your presence here last night. It was the only thing that gave me comfort."

Scully was quiet for a moment. "Last night was the first night that I slept since Monday," she said quietly.

"In that chair?" Mulder asked gesturing to the side of the bed. "It doesn't look very comfortable." He looked over at the clock on the nightstand. "You aren't planning on spending the night here? Are you?" He looked up at his partner and caught the grin on her face. "Scully, please just stay with me though dinner … and then tomorrow take me home." He squeezed her hand gently.

Scully smiled warmly. "I would kiss you," she started catching movement from the hallway out of the corner of her eye. Agent Behnke entered the room behind her with a pizza box in hand.

"But you don't want to get poison ivy?" Mulder answered, not seeing Behnke.

"She doesn't want me to get jealous!" Behnke remarked setting the pizza box on the bedside table. "Contraband,' he added nodding at the box.

"Meatless?" Mulder asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Veggie … extra cheese," Behnke replied with a wink. He pulled three cans of soda out of his coat pocket and handed one to Mulder and Scully.

Scully leaned over to inspect the pizza and scowled at Behnke. "I thought you said we were going to eat healthier?" She arched her eyebrows and darted her gaze from Behnke to Mulder.

"Vegetables are healthy!" Behnke replied defensively shrugging his shoulders.

"Drenched in cheese?"

"It's better than that hotdog you ate at the gas station yesterday," Behnke smarted back at her.

Mulder grabbed a piece of pizza and munched on it as he listened to the volley between his two friends. _Friends_, he thought to himself. _Always better to be in the company of bickering friends than to be subject to the sins of the darkness. _

-0-


End file.
